In the Jazz’s final home game of the 2018-19 regular season on Tuesday night, they did a little bit of everything to send the Vivint Smart Home Arena faithful home happy.
Donovan Mitchell scored a career-high-tying 46 points, and added seven rebounds and four assists. Rudy Gobert contributed 20 points, 10 rebounds, and two blocks, while dominating his matchup with All-Star counterpart Nikola Jokic.
And with a 118-108 victory over the Denver Nuggets, they reached a symbolic milestone with their 50th victory of the year, and clinched no worse than the fifth seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
They’ll close out their regular season Wednesday in Los Angeles against the Clippers, then will be off to the playoffs for a third consecutive season. They locked in the Western Conference’s No. 5 seed, but their opponent still is yet to be determined.
Coach Quin Snyder said afterward it was nice to see his two stars step up in a big way after the team’s lackluster performance in a stunning loss to the Lakers on Sunday night.
“Donovan and Rudy allow themselves to be coached. You can say, sometimes, things that are uncomfortable, and you can say them in front of the team, and tonight those guys responded,” he said. “The two of them against the Lakers, they weren’t very good, and they knew it. And for them to come out tonight the way they did …”
Well, quite simply, they were the deciding factor.
They got plenty of help, of course. Derrick Favors returned to the starting lineup after missing four games due to back spasms, and contributed 16 points and seven rebounds. Joe Ingles had another big night distributing the ball, racking up 13 assists to go along with 10 points and six rebounds.
But it was Mitchell and Gobert who did the heavy lifting.
The second-year guard out of Louisville was hot from the outset — draining 6 of 8 shots in the opening quarter for 17 points.
Naturally — after Snyder on Sunday lamented the team’s bad habit of not continuing to do what works — the Jazz lost much of their momentum in the second quarter. Offensively, Utah coughed up the ball seven times, which both diminished its own scoring opportunities and enabled Denver to push the ball in transition. The result? The Nuggets shot 13 of 22 in the quarter and tallied 38 points, making it a one-point game at halftime.
Denver went up a few points in the third, but the Jazz eventually righted themselves. Better ball movement led to back-to-back dunks by Favors, and a five-point advantage.
In the fourth, it was close for a time until Denver coach Mike Malone made a gamble that did not pay off.
Jokic, who will appear on some MVP ballots, picked up his fifth foul of the game with just under 10 minutes to play. Malone kept him in.
Less than two minutes later, Thabo Sefolosha drove baseline, dished to Gobert, and Jokic took a swipe to prevent the big man from dunking. With 8:12 to play, Jokic headed to the bench for good with only two points (on 1-for-6 shooting), five rebounds, and two assists in 16:03 played.
From there, the Jazz started to pull away — a 21-8 run over a late 8-minute stretch sealing the deal.
“We got four or five stops in a row, and for two minutes they didn’t score,” Gobert said. “We really fed off that, and then we got to the line, and we were able to make plays and score, but it was all about our defense.”
Of course, the late offense wasn’t bad, either. Mitchell drew raves from Snyder for being “unselfish” late in finding teammates for key scores to expand the lead: “That’s not common, when you’ve got it going like that, to call someone else’s number or get off the ball.”
Gobert, meanwhile, drew oohs and ahhs from the crowd after getting the ball in isolation at the 3-point line, putting a crossover move on Paul Millsap, and getting to the rim for an and-one.
“We have a lot left in us,” Mitchell said. “Tonight was huge — everybody stepping up and doing their part. … We are just excited to get this thing started in the playoffs.”
Who they’ll start it against remains to be seen. A first-round series vs. the Blazers could have been clinched Tuesday night with either a Rockets victory over the Thunder or a Lakers win against the Blazers, but both contests went the wrong way on last-minute shots.
Now, it will come down to Wednesday’s finales. If either the Nuggets lose to the Wolves or the Blazers fall to the Kings — or both — the Jazz will be heading to Portland. If both Denver and Portland prevail, Utah will be going to Houston to take on the Rockets. The Jazz’s game vs. the Clippers is irrelevant for Utah from a seeding perspective.
