Utah Jazz: Strong 4th quarter lifts Jazz

Jazz-Timberwolves boxscore

MINNEAPOLIS — Hot Rod Hundley famously called them the "pesky Timberwolves."

Al Jefferson used to call them his team.

Now Minnesota can call itself a member of an ever-growing club.

For the 10th time this season, the Utah Jazz gutted out a victory after trailing by double digits. And for the sixth time, they did it after finding themselves down by at least 15 points.

The T-Wolves became Utah's latest victim Wednesday night as the Jazz howled back with a huge fourth quarter to pull off an exciting 112-107 win at the Target Center.

The Jazz weren't the only ones who rallied. After a rough first half, Jefferson scored a whopping 21 points in the last two quarters in the comeback.

"It's too much pressure. We make it hard on ourselves," said Jefferson, who finished with 23 points and exhaled a sigh of relief after beating his old buddies. "But, hey, it showed that we don't give up (and) — we can look down and get it from somewhere, and that's what we did tonight."

After trailing by 15 in the first half and by 14 late in the third, Utah (21-9) scrapped, scraped and outscored Minnesota (6-24) by a whopping 41-24 in the final period.

"We had to overcome a lot," Jazz point guard Deron Williams said. "They played well. That team played well over there. They battled. They took us out of our rhythm early and we didn't start really playing until that fourth quarter."

But, what a fourth it was.

After an extended rally, Paul Millsap finally gave the Jazz their first lead with a hard-earned three-point play with 33.5 seconds remaining.

Gordon Hayward — yes, the rarely used rookie — clinched the Jazz's latest rallying effort with a slam dunk and a free throw with 13 seconds to go.

"We just keep fighting," Williams said. "We know if we can keep chipping away and give ourselves a chance to get back into the game we'll get our confidence up and we get going."

Despite playing one of the worst teams in the NBA record-wise, it took a bit more effort to pull this comeback off. Utah entered the fourth 12 points down and trailed by seven with three minutes left.

But, as has so often been the case in this Season of the Comeback, the Jazz did.