Utah Jazz guard Keyonte George met with reporters after the 116-114 home win over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night at Delta Center. The victory snapped a five-game skid for Utah and improved their mark to 13-24.
George highlighted the boost from the home crowd. “Honestly, I can speak for myself and it just felt great to be around the home crowd and feel the energy. I’m sure everybody on the squad felt the same. So, obviously the fans give us, you know, that boost of energy when we need it.”
He described the overall approach. “We talk about competing up at our compete level. But I think today, you know, from top to bottom, you know, we was just professional, understanding what we here for. At the end of the day, it’s a part of our day. 48 minutes. I mean, we trained for so long. This is what we work for. So, we we did what we needed to do obviously throughout the day to make sure we was ready.”
On the defensive improvement, George focused on self-reflection. “It’s more so if we want to um we have to look ourselves in the m mirror understand you know what what type of team we wanted to be what’s our identity on that on that side of the floor. You know for us I mean we just want to you know you talk about being the bully. We just want to be the bully on that end. Let’s be physical. Set the tone of the game and but it’s just it’s just a will to want to. Every everybody on the floor wanted to guard, everybody wanted to get stops. But it’s that will to win at the end of the day.”
George noted multiple players stepping up in the fourth. “The beauty of this team of late is everybody’s contributing and in the fourth quarter you came on, Lauri came on, but Sensabaugh and Walt [Walter Clayton Jr.] came on big too.”
He spoke about Brice Sensabaugh. “Brice’s time is I mean, y’all seen the games where he can go for 20, 30. Like, I’ve seen him do so many things in practice. He got all the tools.”
George emphasized ball movement late in the game. “If we can continue to play team ball and the other team doesn’t know who we getting the ball to, what plays we running, like if we can just let the ball have energy, I think that’s what we did tonight. Brice hit a big time three-ball top of the key. Lauri feel like he had it going all night. And then I was able to step up, make a big turnaround. But everybody defensively, Walt making a phenomenal play at the rim. Coming over, fouling, like, it’s just things like that that honestly, you know, lead to winning.”
The guard talked about building habits. “We’re trying to put ourselves in these spots as much as possible this season. So, now we can stop talking about the compete stuff and we can talk about, you know, the little schemes and stuff. So, you know, down the stretch we’re able to execute and and win the game.”
He addressed team growth. “We’ve showed spurts, but obviously the game last night and to come in and play the way we play, it should be a positive thing for us. We did it one night, but we can’t just do it one time. We got to do it over and over and over again, but we got to take it day by day. We got two really good days as far as competing.”
Utah controlled the paint with a 64-46 edge and scored 25 points off 20 Dallas turnovers. The Jazz host Charlotte on Saturday.
