It’s a too-familiar story at this point: the Utah Jazz play well, build up a sizable lead, let off the gas, and blow it.
It happened again Friday night.
When Rudy Gay drilled a 3-pointer off an assist from Mike Conley with 10:02 left to play, the Utah Jazz went up by 15 against the San Antonio Spurs. They got outscored 38-21 after that, handing San Antonio a 104-102 victory and gifting Gregg Popovich the NBA record for most wins by a head coach.
The Spurs celebrated their coach’s accomplishment. The Jazz repeated the same old tired refrains about needing to knock it off, and emerging better for it after their accumulated heartbreaks.
“At some point, we’re just going to have to sit and look ourselves in the mirror and say, ‘Look, what are we gonna be?’ One through 15,” said Donovan Mitchell, who scored 18 first-half points, then didn’t score again until only 2:05 remained. “It’s tough, it hurts, this sucks, it ain’t fun — I can tell you that right now. I want to say it’s growing pains, I want to say it’s part of that, but … We’ll be better because of this, but this can’t continue to happen. I’ve said this for months. We’ve all said it for months.”
Mike Conley, who contributed five rebounds, five assists, and five steals, but who shot 2 for 14, also acknowledged that this has been a conversation the team has had ad nauseum.
“We’ve said that multiple times throughout the year. We said that in Houston [nine days before] when we gave up the lead and they almost came back and won that one. It’s less about us acknowledging the fact that we need to be better — we just have to do it,” he said. “We have to go out there and make those plays and put the pedal to the metal when it’s time. … Obviously, it’s not something that’s new to us as far as having been in this position in the past.”
Great. Fantastic. Sounds good.
Now then … how do you actually stop talking about doing it, and just go out and do it?
There, Mitchell conceded he and his teammates didn’t have a good answer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “… I don’t have an answer for you right now. Maybe if you ask me after shootaround tomorrow, or whatever it is, on Monday, but I don’t know.”
And there’s the real problem.
Because if the Jazz knew how to solve that issue, well, it wouldn’t be an issue anymore, would it?
Irate and/or pessimistic fans can rattle off a couple handfuls of games where the Jazz have amassed and then surrendered double-digit leads — Magic … Pelicans … Pistons … Rockets … Lakers … Lakers again … and so on and so on. There are more.
Meanwhile, Utah is now 1-6 this season in games decided by three points or less.
Of course they all rattled off some things they can do better.
Rudy Gobert, who finished with 13 points, 16 rebounds, and five blocks, but could not slow down the Spurs’ late midrange assault, said Utah must treat fourth quarters with more importance.
“For us, really, when it’s the fourth quarter, we’ve got to raise our level. It doesn’t matter if we’re down 15, if we’re up 15. We need to have that mindset that when it’s the fourth,” he said. “When we’ve been playing great and we’re up 15, we kind of try to groove into a win, and I don’t think that’s the team we want to be. We can get better in that aspect.
“… It’s frustrating for me and for us as a team to lose those games when we’re the better team for three quarters. It’s really on us to embrace that,” Gobert added. “When it’s the fourth quarter, [treat it like] it’s zero-zero, and we’ve got to win the fourth. Win the fourth, win the game.”
Conley added that the Jazz letting their minds wander remains an issue.
“It’s a lack of focus down the stretch,” he said. “We’ve shown that we’ve been able to be locked in at certain points of the season, but certain games seem to creep up where we relax with certain leads with certain teams, and we can’t do that if we want to be the team that we think we can be. We have to take care of games when we have control of ‘em. Tonight was another example of that.”
It certainly was.
Mitchell agreed with those sentiments (”thinking we have the cat in the bag or whatever”), then tried to shoulder the blame and the responsibility by critiquing his own leadership skills, or lack thereof.
“I put this one on me. I’ve just got to be better as a leader for the group. I don’t really place any blame anywhere else. As a leader of this team, I shouldn’t have let this happen,” he said. “Keeping the group together. We just let up. I can sit here and tell you all the same story I’ve been telling you a bunch of times … but I just gotta be better.”
The entire postgame media session was a dour and solemn and serious affair, with the exception of Gobert’s brilliant response to the final query of the night, about being assessed a flagrant foul for jumping to throw a pass, flinging out a leg, and catching San Antonio’s Josh Richardson in the nether regions.
“I don’t feel like my foot was really high. But it’s a size 20, so it doesn’t need to be high to hit somebody’s nuts,” Gobert said. “It’s just unfortunate. I hope he’s OK. I hope he’s still gonna have kids.”
It was a welcomed moment of levity after another gut-punch letdown.
And it’s certainly not a line you hear every day.
As opposed to, say …
“It’s getting late in the season and we’ve got to figure this out. Otherwise we’ll be in the same position we were in last year,” Mitchell concluded. “I think we will. I have the utmost confidence that we will.”
Now, if only he knew how.
