3-point shots: Jazz beat Philly

A few observations from a much-needed 102-99 win over Philadelphia that can be chalked up to the young guys:

POINT 1: Have to admit to being surprised when I looked at the boxscore after the game. Enes Kanter’s final statistics seemed to be deceiving. He ended with six rebounds and four points, but he played bigger than that. Guess it’s appropriate that the Jazz would’ve lost without his four points. The 19-year-old manchild has vice-grips for hands when he goes up to rebound. He mistimed a few boards, but when he goes up and gets his mitts on the ball, he gets the rebound. Impressive. His putback dunk late in the game was huge, too. He even finished one of his strong interior moves. Once he consistently does that, watch out.

POINT 2: That was a strong outing by Gordon Hayward. I was particularly impressed with the way he distributed the ball. Hayward was a guard growing up before his growth spurt, and buddy Jeremy Evans said ballhandling was one of the things the Butler product focused on this summer. It’s showing. His big jumper in the final minute also showed his work with Jeff Hornacek on the curl is paying dividends.

POINT 3: Derrick Favors was the story of the game. His performance reminded me of what general manager Kevin O’Connor said after the Mehmet Okur trade. They felt comfortable trading the popular Memo away because the 6-foot-10 Favors has shown he can play both interior positions. As much potential as the 20-year-old has at power forward, he’s almost even more intriguing as a center. He might lack a couple of inches on some NBA pivots, but he won the fun-to-watch battle against 7-foot-1 Spencer Hawes (15 points, 13 rebounds). Coach Tyrone Corbin raved about his defense, too, and especially how he forced Philly guard Lou Williams to take a higher trajectory on his game-tying 3-point attempt in the final seconds.