"You know it's a lot of game left, but you want to get it going as soon as you can. You get a little nerve-wracked over there," Corbin said. "But these guys are tremendous character guys — they want it badly. I didn't want to put any more pressure on them to make it happen."
Foye finished with 14 points and eight assists, while Derrick Favors contributed 15 points and six rebounds off the bench.
Those two, Earl Watson (five assists, six rebounds), DeMarre Carroll and Enes Kanter sparked the Jazz on a game-changing 11-3 run in the second quarter as Utah turned things around to take a 51-47 lead into halftime.
In consecutive possessions, Foye hit a 3-pointer, Watson fed Favors with an alley-oop dunk and Carroll slammed in two points after a steal.
Led by Greivis Vasquez's 17-point, 13-assist showing, the Hornets (15-31) overtook the Jazz briefly in the second half and almost rallied out of a double-digit deficit. But that second-quarter stretch put the shaky Jazz back on solid ground for a change.
"I thought Earl did a good job coming in and giving us some energy and pushing the ball up the court," Corbin said. "The guys on the wings did a good job running the floor early and getting in a rhythm. They changed the tempo for us. Everything was clogged inside and waiting on what was going to happen."
This time, Jazz fans left in the fourth quarter and after the final buzzer with smiles on their face, knowing a 50-point turnaround had happened since Monday night.
"This was big for us," Favors said. "We wanted to come in and play and try to get the win."
Many in Utah were just satisfied to see their team try.
NOTES: Neither team had its key Gordon. Jazz sixth man Gordon Hayward missed his second game in a row with a sprained right shoulder, while Hornets standout guard Eric Gordon sat out with sore right knee. … The Jazz improved to 5-1 when Millsap and Jefferson both hit the 20-point mark. … Utah shot 32 for 46 from the free-throw line, including a season-team-high 16 by Millsap (11-16). … Foye went 2 for 6 from beyond the arc. He is the fastest player in Jazz history to hit 100 3-pointers in a season.
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Jody is a sports writer who covers the Utah Jazz for the Deseret News (yeah, rough life). He also writes about his fitness/health journey and triathlon exploits in his "Losing It!" column. He has been with the paper since more ..
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Big deal- Jazz barely beat a lower echelon team at home after getting shellacked by a mid level team. Pretty disappointing given the potential of the younger players on the bench and the lackadaisical performance of the veterans.
Hey, it was a win but . . .
When the Jazz were down 24 - 12 in the first quarter, I didn't have much hope. They looked sluggish and disinterested. They pulled it out in the end but it was much harder than it should have been.
And now for a more realistic look at what happened last night.
1. The Jazz came out almost as sluggish as they did durng the Houston game. The defense looked bad and they went down by double digits and were booed in the first quarter.
2. More..