The Triple Team: How did the Jazz make their incredible 4Q comeback?

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 123-108 win over the Milwaukee Bucks from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. How about that 4th quarter?

A completely dominant fourth quarter from the Jazz was needed to win: 40-13 will decide nearly any game.

They did it behind the same lineup for all 12 minutes: Keyonte George, Jordan Clarkson, Lauri Markkanen, Kelly Olynyk, and Walker Kessler — all bench players but Markkanen. But Will Hardy did something new in this game, pulling Markkanen early in the third so he could play all 12 minutes of the fourth.

That led to a lot of good things happening:

• With all of that front court size, the Jazz had plenty of bodies to send at Giannis Antetokounmpo defensively and to help at the rim. The Bucks scored only four points in the paint in the fourth quarter.

They doubled him all over, sent help regularly, and then relied on each other to fly around the 3-point line. (Some tired legs from the Bucks helped some open threes miss, too.) The Jazz were also very confident in allowing Jae Crowder to shoot threes.

• All of those bodies forced a ton of turnovers from the Bucks in the quarter: nine in all. The Jazz scored 10 points off of those turnovers.

• Some excellent passing from Clarkson (four assists in the quarter) and Olynyk (five assists in the quarter) opened up the Jazz’s offense. They did such a good job of forcing some help — more on that later — and then passing to the open man. It really was such an unselfish performance.

• The crowd made a huge difference. I’m not sure if it was due to the Sunday game, but I thought the crowd at the Delta Center was electric.

Overall, such an impressive comeback against one of the best teams in the NBA. In a circumstance when the Jazz could have closed up shop, they fought back, and I think that says a lot about the mentality of this team.

2. Attacking Malik Beasley

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