Keyonte George played much better in the second game of the Utah Jazz’s back-to-back set against the Houston Rockets. After laying a goose egg in the 129-101 loss on Sunday, the 22-year-old guard registered 28 points, four rebounds, and eight assists on 8-for-14 shooting from the field and 10-for-12 shooting from the charity stripe in 37 minutes, helping his team win 133-125.
“For me, it was just about honestly apologizing to the fans,” George said via Sarah Todd of Deseret News. “They don’t deserve how we played yesterday, and just to speak on how I played, they don’t deserve that either.”
“Every single night I got to come bring the energy, and that’s what happened tonight… If we don’t bring the energy, we see what it looks like, and when we bring the energy, we see what it looks like, and we beat a great team on the other end,” he added.
Besides George, six more Utah Jazz players notched double-digit points. Lauri Markkanen was the team’s top scorer with 29 points on 9-for-17 shooting. Jusuf Nurkic, Ace Bailey, Kyle Filipowski, Kevin Love, and Svi Mykhailiuk added 18, 13, 12, 11, and 10 points, respectively.
Utah Jazz News: Will Hardy lauds the team’s bounceback performance vs. Houston Rockets
Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy commended his players for their resilience against the Houston Rockets. They led by as many as 21 points, but Houston cut their lead to just three in the final minutes before they successfully weathered the storm.
“We talked pregame a little bit about it not being about how we start the game, it’s that we have to sustain our focus for 48 minutes,” Hardy said.
“We’re going to have to go through some tough moments, and I thought for the majority of the game, we played really, really cohesive basketball on both sides of the floor,” he added.
