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Need an assist? Jazz pile up plenty in win over Bucks

With 32 assists, Utah ties season high for second time in four games.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles (2) hits a three-pointer as the Utah Jazz host the Milwaukee Bucks, NBA basketball in Salt Lake City Saturday November 25, 2017.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles (2) hits a three-pointer as the Utah Jazz host the Milwaukee Bucks, NBA basketball in Salt Lake City Saturday November 25, 2017.

He fired a dagger 3-pointer in the face of an All-Star and led the Jazz in points again with 24.

And yet, maybe the most impressive thing Donovan Mitchell did all night didn’t come on a basket he scored.

In the third quarter, Rodney Hood sent a pass to the rookie that he had to leap to reach. While still in the air, Mitchell fired a pass under the rim where a wide-open Thabo Sefolosha was waiting. The play took less than two seconds to get from Hood’s hands to the bucket — a perfect read that almost suprised Sefolosha.

“That was nice,” Sefolosha said afterward, laughing. “It’s instinctive.”

It was the way the Utah Jazz (9-11) played in the 121-108 win over the Milwaukee Bucks: unselfishly and decisively. Tying a season high with 32 assists, there were plenty of shots to go around.

Against a Bucks team (9-9) that prides itself on disrupting ball movement, the Jazz looked like they were playing as free as they have all year on offense on the way to a season-high 56.8 field goal percentage. And it’s a noticeable change from how the team was playing during a stretch in which it was 1-7.

The Jazz played aggressively in the pick and roll, and moving without the ball helped set up a number of plays for uncontested shots.

“I thought we were unbelievably unselfish,” coach Quin Snyder said. “Offensively we were really connected and trying to help each other. When you do that, you have a better chance of having a good shooting night, and we obviously had that.”

No one player had to carry the Jazz to victory: Six Jazz men finished with 11 or more points on Saturday night. It was also telling that five players also had three or more assists, led by Joe Ingles with nine assists to go with his 15 points.

The fact that the Jazz were able to bury a franchise-record 18 of their 32 attempts from 3-point range helped the assist numbers. But Snyder said it’s been a “point of emphasis” for the Jazz lately to get the right spacing and make the right reads. As the team is getting more familiar with one another, the ball movement is getting better.

Before the most recent four games, the Jazz lost seven of their previous eight, and only reached the 23-assist plateau once in that stretch. But in the last four, during which the Jazz are 3-1, Utah has averaged 26 assist per game, including two 31-assist performances against Orlando and Milwaukee.

The shooting struggles during the losing streak helped enforce some selfish tendencies. But after notching seven assists and only one turnover against the Bucks, Ricky Rubio said the Jazz are now moving in the right direction.

“When the shots didn’t fall as much at the beginning of the season, we started to play hero ball sometimes,” he said. “But we went back to playing as a team, and we’re unstoppable that way.”​