Utah Jazz: Forget Hayward; how about Jae Crowder’s statement game?

On a night that was supposedly all about Gordon Hayward, Utah Jazz forward Jae Crowder made a statement with his inspired play.

Let’s face facts here; there’s been a lot of negative energy permeating Jazzland recently. I’m not saying it hasn’t been justified or that it ever veered into any ugly or inappropriate areas, but when the Utah Jazz took the court at the Viv on Friday against the returning Gordon Hayward and his Boston Celtics, it was absolutely all about giving him a piece of our minds and making him pay for his ill-executed exodus from Salt Lake City.

Now that it’s all over and the good guys won out, I’d say it’s about time we switch the focus to something positive, for a change. Namely, the fact that Jae Crowder made a statement in the game.

I’d even call it a revenge game, if we weren’t looking onward and upward. Whatever it was, though, I know it made this guy’s heart grow two sizes.

Crowder scored 20 points, grabbed six boards, dished out four dimes and added a block and a steal for good measure in Utah’s big win. Along the way, he hit multiple key shots and invigorated the Jazz faithful and his team with energy, emotion and hammer dunks.

Quite literally, he turned a negative situation into a positive one with his performance.

Of course, there’s no denying that Crowder evened a score.

He and Hayward have been connected for some time now, dating back to when the former was still in Boston and Celtics fans actively campaigned for the latter to take his job. At the time, Cs fans chanting Hayward’s name in spite of him rubbed Crowder the wrong way. “I heard the cheering,” he said in January of 2017. “I think that was a sign of disrespect to me from the fans.”

On Friday, he finally put all of that to bed and freed himself of both the Hayward connection and his dismissal from Beantown.

Looking beyond the Hayward stuff, though, he also showed the basketball world exactly who he has become in Utah. After a year in which his mother died, he was traded twice and his play and mental state both suffered as a result, he hasn’t just reclaimed his “Boston Jae” level, he’s actually breaking new ground as an NBA player.

He’s emerged from the darkness and is shining brighter than ever, a fact that clearly isn’t lost on Jazz coach Quin Snyder, who made a point to embrace Crowder following his big night.

Through 12 games, Crowder is now putting up a cool 15-6-2 line off the bench and knocking down 46 percent of his shots and 35 percent of his triples. After a down year, he’s been one of the best bench players in the league and the beating heart of his Jazz squad from an emotional standpoint.

Honestly, they’d be in rough shape without him.

As nice as it was for the Jazz to beat Gordon Hayward, I think it will do us all a lot of good if we focus on that instead.

Now that his much-anticipated return to Salt Lake City is on the books, at long last, we can let Gordon do Gordon things and just watch Jae Crowder rock the house.