The Utah Jazz know what people have said about them this season.

When you trade All-Stars like Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert along with all of your starters while gobbling up draft picks, outsiders often downplay your chances of success and use words like "tanking" to describe the state of your franchise.

"It's not easy to go into a season where everybody's telling you that you're not very good," Jazz coach Will Hardy said after his team surprised Sacramento in a 128-120 victory. "There's obviously rough patches at points in the season. ... You lose four in a row, you dip a certain number of games below .500, and everybody says, 'Oh, there it is, it's over,' and that's natural."