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SLIDESHOW: Utah Jazz vs San Antonio Spurs
SALT LAKE CITY -- Jazz players tried to send themselves a sort of mental "get well" card Thursday morning, several hours before their nationally-televised game with the San Antonio Spurs.
After struggling through the first four games of the season -- looking lost on the offensive end and lackluster on defense -- they stopped fretting over their failures and started talking tough.
"As a team, we haven't played well at all," point guard Deron Williams said after his team's morning shootaround. "It's just a wanting-to-win thing. We've got to want to win, and put together a full 48 minutes of basketball."
To that end, the Jazz made a remarkable recovery, rising up to thump the Spurs 113-99 in front of a full house at EnergySolutions Arena.
"Some guys have got to get comfortable knowing what's going on in the game and knowing what play they're involved with," coach Jerry Sloan said. "That's just basketball. When you run a play, everybody's got to be involved with it. But sometimes the defense takes you out of that and doesn't let you have what you want."
With injuries to two key perimeter players -- Kyle Korver and C.J. Miles -- and the loss of tough-guy defender Matt Harpring, the Jazz aren't still have plenty of inadequacies. However, for one night at least, they showed what they can do when properly motivated.
All five Utah starters reached double figures and as a team, the Jazz hit 53 percent of their shots from the field.
Williams and Carlos Boozer led the way with 27 point apiece and rookie Wesley Matthews added 12 off the bench.
Boozer also had 14 rebounds and a pair of blocked shots.
San Antonio was led by point guard Tony Parker, who scored 21 points.
The Jazz (2-3) looked sharp in the early going, ripping off a 13-2 run in the first quarter and leaving the Spurs scrambling to catch up.
Utah finished the quarter with a 10-point lead and pushed it to 15 before the Spurs (2-2) made a late run, cutting the lead to 60-50 at halftime.
Utah shot 56 percent from the field in the first half, hitting 25 of 45 shot attempts.
Meanwhile, the Jazz also got the job done on the defensive end, holding the Spurs to just 42 percent (17-of-41).
At the break, Boozer led the Jazz with 13 points, eight rebounds and two blocked shots.
Parker led the Spurs with 17 points, 13 of which came in the second quarter.
Boozer, who came into the game shooting just 35 percent from the field, was booed loudly after missing his first shot of the game. However, it didn't take long for him to win over the home crowd.
Twice during the first quarter he hustled to tie up Spurs' star Tim Duncan, forcing a jumpball each time. Later he made a nifty move to the basket, going up and under San Antonio's defense to score his first points of the contest.
Suddenly, the booing died down and the cheering followed.
Boozer kept it going in the second half, adding 10 more points and five more rebounds in the third quarter.
Williams added 14 points in the period, going 5-for-10 from the field and 4-for-4 from the free throw line.
The Jazz outscored the Spurs 53-49 in the second half and turned the ball over just six times. Duncan finished the game with 15 points and 13 rebounds.
Andrei Kirilenko had 12 points for the Jazz, while Ronnie Brewer and Mehmet Okur had 10 apiece.
