DALLAS — The Utah Jazz looked to turn a little bit of a corner on Monday night at American Airlines Center.
The Jazz beat the Dallas Mavericks 123-119 for their third straight win after having lost a season-worst five in a row.
In each stage of the game, the Jazz seemed to be on the other side of the things that had plagued them through their losing streak, and the change came in large part thanks to the depth of the team.
It was an all too familiar scene early in the second half when, after having led by as many as 23 points, the Jazz’s starting unit came out flat and allowed the Mavericks to have their way on the offensive end.
The Jazz’s lead dwindled down to just three points before the bench unit turned things around.
With Jordan Clarkson and Emmanuel Mudiay on the floor then later Georges Niang and Tony Bradley added to the group, the Jazz were able to go on a 16-4 run to finish out the third quarter and from there it was just about maintaining and weathering any final punch the Mavs had to throw.
“It was huge, that’s what kept us in the game in the second half,” Jazz assistant coach Alex Jensen said after the game. “Jordan Clarkson has been good, but Emmanuel, not playing for the last little stretch, I cannot say enough about him. And then Tony Bradley, those tip-outs were huge.”
Here is a list of the bad things that we’ve seen the Jazz do this season, especially over the past couple of weeks: they start the game slow and unfocused; at least one of the starters is having such an off night that it impacts everyone else; as soon as the defense has the slightest breakdown it seems like the wheels fall off; when they let another team back into the game, they don’t find a way to reverse the situation and get back on top; they get a lead and then stop fighting; they bleed points when the bench comes in.
Those things do not happen all of the time and usually not all at once, but there have been some definite trends. What was good on Monday night was that when the Jazz seemed destined to fall into one of those bad habits, they reversed course and made good decisions.
The Jazz opened the night with some hard-nosed defense and moved the ball around even when their preferred actions were being cut off. Donovan Mitchell opened by hitting from deep, Bojan Bogdanovic attacked the rim early exposing some of the Mavericks weak seams, and the Jazz were getting contributions from everyone on the floor.
“It’s been an interesting two weeks. That’s what good teams do though, you have a little rough stretch and you bounce back.” — Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell
It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen this team hot to start the game without having the one outlying person who is clearly a net negative.
“It’s been an interesting two weeks,” Mitchell said. “That’s what good teams do though, you have a little rough stretch and you bounce back.”
The starters came out in the third quarter and the clear question was, will the Jazz be able to maintain their lead? As soon as the Jazz started to falter, things looked eerily familiar to the team that lost five straight.
“The biggest thing was that we weren’t scared,” Mitchell said. “We weren’t like, ‘Ah here we go again.’ It was like, ‘How do we fix it?’”
In order to fix things and avoid more foul trouble than they were already having, Quin Snyder allowed his bench unit a chance to right the ship and to their absolute credit they turned the game around. This was not a scene where Bradley and Mudiay come on the floor and their first mistake is an indication of what is to come.
“They picked us up big time. They were huge. The guys that came in brought something and on a night like this that’s the reason that we won.” — Jazz center Rudy Gobert on the bench
The longer the bench stayed on the floor, the more confident they seemed, and it showed on the scoreboard.
“They picked us up big time. They were huge,” Gobert said of the Jazz bench. “The guys that came in brought something and on a night like this that’s the reason that we won.”
Clarkson, who fouled out late in the fourth, finished the night with a team-high 25 points to go with eight assists and five rebounds. Mudiay closed out the evening with 12 points on 5 o 8 shooting including going a perfect 2 of 2 from deep. Bradley finished with six points and an impressive six offensive rebounds.
Mitchell and Bogdanovic paced the starting unit with 23 points apiece, and Gobert finished the night with 17 points and 16 rebounds.
The 35-18 Jazz return home on Wednesday to face the Miami Heat in their final game before the All-Star break.