Jazz overcome slow start, pull away for a 117-91 rout of the Cavaliers

Cleveland • Quin Snyder likes to use the phrase “process over results,” as in, he’ll accept a missed shot if the play that led up to it was at least well-executed.

Friday night at Quicken Loans Arena, he may have had to relax his standards a bit.

It wasn’t pretty, considering it took two and half quarters to assert dominance over a team with the worst record in the NBA, which was without its top player, but Utah finally pulled away from the hapless Cavaliers, emerging with a 117-91 victory.

“That was pretty dramatic. I thought we came out with a good sense of urgency in the third quarter,” said Kyle Korver, who was welcomed back with an ovation and scoreboard tribute after two-plus seasons on the Cavs. “Our defense really just set up the whole thing — it was great in the second half. We missed some open shots in the first half, then we got on a nice little run.”

Of course, “nice little run” understates thing just a bit.

A 3-pointer by Donovan Mitchell with exactly 5 minutes left in the third quarter tied the game at 64-all. It also sparked a 20-7 run to end the period that turned a three-point deficit into a 10-point lead.

From there, Utah’s superior experience and talent levels finally took over, as the Jazz dominated the final quarter, opening it on a 21-6 blitz to push the advantage to 102-77, and sending Cleveland fans streaming toward the exits.

In all, after that 64-all tie, Utah outscored Cleveland 53-27.

Before that, though … well, it was mentioned that it wasn’t pretty, right?

After shooting just 36.4 percent from the field and going 2 for 9 from deep in the opening quarter, the situation went from bad to worse when the Cavs — who are now a league-worst 8-31 overall and without star forward Kevin Love — opened the second period with a 14-2 burst to go up 34-25.

Asked what changed, everyone had a theory.

“We stopped fouling, for one thing,” said Snyder, who pointed out that Cleveland took 11 free throws in the second quarter alone, then only five more in all of the second half.

That was hardly the sole culprit, however.

“In the first half, our execution defensively, we were doing some good things and we had some breakdowns … where we didn’t execute the way we wanted to,” Snyder added. “… Our effort’s always good, but we were focused on making the right play defensively [post-halftime], and it turned into some good opportunities on the offensive end, and guys made some shots. It was good to see the ball go in the basket. I think they all felt that way.”

Rudy Gobert said the reason for the better offensive play — in spite that woeful first quarter, Utah wound up shooting 51.2 percent for the game — was better ball movement.

“They kind of surprised us — they were physical, they were shifting a lot, helping a lot, so we had to realize that we were gonna have to move the ball and find the open man,” he said. “And once we started doing that, things started opening up for us.”

Mitchell, meanwhile, was focused on the better effort on the other end.

“We were just trying to turn the energy up on defense,” he said. “And when we limited their options in transition, that’s what really got us going.”

Utah had balanced scoring, with eight players totaling double-digits. Mitchell led the way with 18, while Jae Crowder added 16, Ricky Rubio had 15, Joe Ingles and Gobert 12 each, Dante Exum had 11, and Derrick Favors and Korver had 10 apiece.

Korver said that all the aforementioned reasons cited played a part. The point, he concluded, is that after playing not especially well initially, the processes improved, and thus, so too did the ultimate result.

“In basketball, going from OK to good and good to great is all about the little things,” Korver said. “It’s like this much all the time. And I though we were this much better in the second half.”