How the Utah Jazz bounced back after loss to the Los Angeles Lakers to have a great offensive performance in win over Sacramento Kings

SALT LAKE CITY — On Saturday night as the Utah Jazz debuted their throwback purple mountain jerseys, they looked, for the first time during the regular season, like the sort of team that can be among the NBA’s elite squads — just as they were when they first wore the threads 23 years ago.

A day after an awful offensive performance on the road against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Jazz were a completely different team against the Sacramento Kings at Vivint Arena en route to a 113-81 victory.

How much of a breakout performance did the Jazz have on Saturday? Some stats:

• After only scoring 37 points in the first half against Los Angeles, Utah had 35 at the end of the first quarter against the Kings.

• By halftime, the Jazz had made 13 3-pointers, just one fewer than their total in the first two games, and on 27 fewer attempts.

• At intermission, Utah had 17 assists on 25 baskets and led by 25, 66-41.

• The Jazz went 18 for 37 from beyond the arc and tallied 28 assists on 44 made shots.

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“It was great. It was great,” said point guard Mike Conley, who himself had a bit of a breakout night with 12 points on 5-of-11 shooting after going just 4 of 27 in the first two games. “It was much needed. I think that our defense has really carried over the last few games, and tonight our offense picked up, too, so to see it all kind of gel together and guys have great nights was a lot of fun to do in front of the home crowd.”

As impressive as the numbers were, it was how the Jazz did it. Sure, Sacramento gave up 124 and 122 points, respectively, in its first two games, but Utah made a clinic out of ball movement, which led to tons of open shots, particularly from behind the 3-point line.

Bojan Bogdanovic was the biggest beneficiary, as he scored 23 points in the first half alone on 9-of-14 shooting, including going 4 of 6 from behind the 3-point line and finished with a game-high 26 points.

In postgame interviews, Rudy Gobert was asked about Bogdanovic’s breakout game, and before the Frenchman could answer, Donovan Mitchell interjected to say, “It won’t be the last.”

Mitchell, head coach Quin Snyder and a number of others pointed specifically to the team’s good spacing as the biggest reason the Jazz were able to have so much success offensively.

“I think for us getting into the paint, defenses collapse and you have Bojan, you have Mike, you have Joe (Ingles), you have me, Royce (O’Neale), Rudy. You have guys open for shots,” Mitchell said. “Having the spacing that we have makes a big difference.”

While the offensive output allowed the Jazz to pull away, as Conley noted, they were very good defensively, especially from the second quarter onward. The Kings scored just 5 points over the final 7:51 before halftime and wound up scoring only 56 in the last three quarters.

Sacramento’s leading scorer Buddy Hield made the first shot of the game, a 3-pointer 18 seconds in, but didn’t score a single point after that. His backcourt mate, the speedy De’Aaron Fox, finished with just 9 points.

Dewayne Dedmon was the only King to reach double figures, and he didn’t get there until 8:31 remaining in the fourth quarter when the contest had long been decided. 

“I think just kind of being able to kind of limit (Hield’s) touches, limit Fox in transition, those were the keys, and I think we did a good job of that,” Mitchell said. “They’re talented players. They can make shots. Fortunately we did a good job to kind of take them out of their different actions.”

Utah will head back out on the road Sunday for a Monday night game against the Phoenix Suns.