Will Hardy Explains What Sparked Jazz’s Blowout Win Over Pacers

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The Utah Jazz were able to pick up the pieces from their latest three-game losing streak on the calendar in a dominant effort vs. the Indiana Pacers, rattling off a 152-128 victory that takes this young roster to win number four on the year.
It was Utah's highest scoring night of the season, and of course, their largest margin of victory on the year as well— thanks in large part due to the Jazz's three-point shooting finally turning around in a positive direction, and for head coach Will Hardy, a game where his group was really able to match the pace on both ends of the floor.
"That's a good win,"Hardy said post-game. "Back-to-backs are hard. That team plays incredibly fast. It took us a second to adjust to the speed of the game, 11 transition points in the first five minutes of the game. Then, we did a good job of kind of meeting the pace of the game, understanding what we needed to do to get back and get our defense set."
Jazz's Pace Dictated Win vs. Pacers

Against a Pacers team that wasn't hitting well from deep (27.0%), the Jazz were able to take advantage of their 19 makes on 42 attempts (45.2%). And when both sides are running up and down the floor at a high rate, it allowed Utah to find their way to plenty of looks, to then connect on nearly half of them, and in turn, came away with a 20-plus point win.
Lauri Markkanen cashed in for 35 points, Ace Bailey contributed for a career-high 20 points of his own, and even Svi Mykhailiuk got heavily involved again with 20 points as a starter.
To play at such a high and taxing pace in the second leg of a back-to-back with those results, Hardy made sure to give credit where it was due after the game.
"They play a really up tempo style, and so, the score ends up looking crazy," Hardy said. "But I felt like our team really competed tonight, offensively, 38 assists, eight guys in double figures. A bunch of guys played really well."
"It's a good team win. These games, like I said, on a back-to-back with a team coming in that plays that style, those games can be really hard, and our team did a really good job tonight."
Thanks to the youth and speed that the Jazz have on their own roster, it was a complementary matchup against another high-speed team in Indiana, and as the Pacers wound up rather depleted, it would be Utah capitalizing on another early win this season.
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Jared Koch is the deputy editor of Utah Jazz On SI. He's covered the NBA and NFL for the past two years, contributing to Denver Broncos On SI, Indianapolis Colts On SI, and Sacramento Kings On SI. He has covered multiple NBA and NFL events on site, and his works have also appeared on Bleacher Report, MSN, and Yahoo.
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