SALT LAKE CITY — Donovan Mitchell spiked the ball in frustration after the final buzzer sounded.
If the Utah Jazz’s night Wednesday could be summed up in a single act, that would be it, as they surrendered an eight-point lead with less than five minutes to play against a wildly shorthanded Denver Nuggets team and fell at Vivint Arena 98-95.
A Bojan Bogdanovic attempt to tie the contest at 98 as the clock wound down fell well short as Utah lost its fifth consecutive game (including a Nuggets comeback win six days previously), all of which have come against Western Conference foes, and a couple of which have been against shorthanded teams.
For the Jazz, the game was much about 3-point shooting. Sure, making shots is the point of the sport, but Utah’s ability to connect or not largely dictated how the contest went.
Facing a Denver squad that used just seven players the entire night because of a combination of injuries and the four-team, 12-player blockbuster trade they were set to finalize with the Houston Rockets, Atlanta Hawks and Minnesota Timberwolves before Thursday afternoon’s NBA trade deadline, the Jazz had rather drastic stretches of either drought or success.
On the night, Utah finished 14 of 39 from behind the 3-point line, but went just 3 of 16 in the second half. The Nuggets went a paltry 7 of 30 from distance for the game, but countered by outrebounding the Jazz and tallying more assists, steals, blocks and points in the paint and fewer turnovers.
Like the game between the two sides last week in the Mile High City, Utah struggled early to get much going inside because of the way the Nuggets were defending, but the Jazz soon figured out how to generate open 3-point shots and got a bunch of them to build a double-digit lead in the first quarter.
They ultimately led by seven at 32-25 after the first 12 minutes and made seven of their 13 3-point attempts to get there.
Utah didn’t run away with the victory, however, which was a direct correlation to 3-point shooting. The Jazz scored just four points in the opening 5:20 of the second quarter as they attempted just two 3-pointers in that span and missed both of them.
But Utah righted the ship and attempted eight 3’s the rest of the quarter, making four, to take a 57-49 lead into halftime.
Just like clockwork, the first part of the third quarter played out much the same way as the first two. With the Jazz up by seven, Mike Conley went on a personal 8-0 run, which included two 3-pointers, to stretch the lead to 15, 71-56.
But despite being so shorthanded, Denver put together a run akin to the 27-1 one it made last week that ultimately carried it to victory. This time, it was 16-4, which got the Nuggets to within three at the end of the third quarter, 75-72. It came in part thanks to the fact Utah went 0 for 6 from behind the 3-point line in the final six minutes of the quarter.
The Nuggets took a couple of one-point leads early in the fourth before, started by a Jordan Clarkson 3-pointer, the Jazz regained control and led 90-81 with 6:46 to play. The advantage was still eight at 92-84 inside of five minutes when the home team’s wheels fell off for good.
Denver cut the deficit to three over the next minute, and then Utah didn’t score a single point over the final 3:20 of the contest. In the last five minutes, the Jazz went 0 for 3 from behind the 3-point line, two of which were attempts from Bogdanovic with less than a minute to go.
In the final 2:36, Utah committed five turnovers.
Jamal Murray led all scorers with 31 points, and Nikola Jokic was phenomenal for the Nuggets, especially down the stretch. He tallied a triple-double with 30 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists. Conley led the Jazz with 21, Mitchell scored 18 and three others added 16.
Utah will next play the Portland Trail Blazers, whom they lost to last Saturday on the road, at home on Friday night.