Rudy Gobert heroics help lift Utah Jazz in win over Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks

SALT LAKE CITY — Rudy Gobert is focused purely on winning and doing whatever it takes to earn the NBA’s most coveted hardware, the Larry O’Brien championship trophy.

Five days before the coaches selections for All-Star reserves are to be announced, Gobert put on possibly his best performance of the season against the Dallas Mavericks’ NBA-leading offense and one of the league’s most feared rising stars in Luka Doncic.

The Utah Jazz beat the Mavericks 112-107 on Saturday and they wouldn’t have been able to do it if not for the herculean effort from the two-time reigning Defensive Player of the Year, who finished with 22 points, 17 rebounds, five blocks and two assists.

It was the kind of dominating performance that brings to mind all sorts of accolades.

“He’s playing on an MVP level right now,” Bojan Bogdanovic said of Gobert. “A lot more than Defensive Player of the Year.”

The Jazz trailed nearly the entire game, but never allowed the Mavericks to pull far enough away to feel comfortable, in large part thanks to the effort of Gobert.

“He kept us in the game in the first half,” Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said of Gobert after the game. “Then I thought everybody raised their level to his level on the defensive end in the second half and we had some guys opportunistically make some plays on offense.”

With 1:37 left in the fourth quarter, Donovan Mitchell hit a 3-pointer to tie the game, 104-104. On the other end, Royce O’Neale and Joe Ingles doubled Doncic and forced him to turn the ball over and when Mitchell drove in for a layup but came up empty, Gobert was there to clean up, tipping the ball in and giving the Jazz a two-point advantage, forcing the Mavericks to call timeout.

On the other side of the break, Tim Hardaway Jr. hit a 3-pointer to regain the lead, but it would be the last time the Mavericks would score.

Mitchell found O’Neale for a corner 3 that gave the Jazz a lead they wouldn’t relinquish because Gobert took away the Mavericks chance to tie the game again.

With 24.8 seconds on the game clock, former Utah Utes standout Delon Wright drove into the lane for a layup and was promptly blocked by the Stifle Tower.

“I’m not able to do what I do if let’s say Royce doesn’t hit that shot, maybe we lose the game tonight, or if Joe doesn’t get a rebound maybe we don’t get the chance to win,” Gobert said. “It’s a team effort. We’re only winning because we’re doing it together.”

Seth Curry was forced to foul Mitchell to stop the clock. Mitchell made both of his free throws. Then after another failed shot attempt by the Mavericks, Kristaps Porzingis fouled Gobert. But Gobert hit his first attempt to put the game out of reach.

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“Winning for me is the No. 1 thing,” Gobert said. “DPOY is great, it’s an award, it’s hardware, it’s great for the legacy, MVP too. But at the end of the day, winning a championship and winning brings all that and we win because we play well as a team.”

The fourth quarter is a good example of what Gobert means. Though he carried the Jazz through large portions of the game, the last stanza was a team effort with Mitchell scoring 11 of his 25 points, Bogdanovic scoring eight of his 23 points, and big plays from Tony Bradley when Gobert was not in the game.

Even so, Gobert’s continued dominance on the defensive end and his offensive improvement have been on display to the point that after the game, former Jazz teammate Enes Kanter took to Twitter to send a message to the coaches choosing the remainder of the All-Star teams.

“Coaches, get it right this time,” he said. “(Rudy Gobert) is an All-Star.”

It wasn’t just his teammates or former teammates that sung Gobert’s praises on Saturday. Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said Gobert’s block on Wright was amazing and that come the end of the season, Gobert might be more than just an All-Star.

“I mean look, Gobert, you know he’s probably going to be Defensive Player of the Year again,” he said. “He impacts the game massively at the defensive end. He doesn’t just do it around the basket, he does it on the perimeter too on switches.”

Gobert defended the same number of positions on Saturday as he had blocks in the game. It wasn’t his first outstanding performance, and it won’t be the last.