Bojan Bogdanovic entrusted to take game-winning shot despite a quiet night for the Utah Jazz

HOUSTON — Bojan Bogdanovic was not having a good game.

He opened Sunday’s road contest against the Houston Rockets with a turnover and his first shot was was a wide corner 3 that hit the side of the backboard.

Bogdanovic’s first made field goal came with 4:18 left in the fourth quarter to give the Utah Jazz a 3-point lead over the Rockets. He then missed a 3 with 1:06 left that would have given the Jazz a 7-point lead.

Despite the limited opportunities and quiet night that Bogdanovic had, he was the one entrusted with taking the final shot for the Jazz.

“He knows how much I trust him.” — Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder, on Bojan Bogdanovic

“It’s big time from their part that to have that trust and confidence in me that I’ll make the last shot after the game that I had,” he said.

That trust and confidence resulted in a contested 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Jazz a 114-113 win over the Rockets.

Sometimes it all just comes down to one shot.

P.J. Tucker had just hit a huge corner 3 for the Rockets to give them the lead. With just 1.6 seconds remaining on the game clock, Quin Snyder took a timeout and drew up a play for Bogdanovic.

“He knows how much I trust him,” Snyder said.

The Jazz had options on the play. Rudy Gobert slipped down off a screen-fake toward the basket and Joe Ingles, inbounding the ball, could have hit him rolling to tie the game. Ingles played the inbound perfectly, faking a pass toward the basket, forcing Tyson Chandler to stay on his right side while he passed left to a flying Bogdanovic, coming around from the weak side.

The Jazz’s Croatian sharpshooter caught the ball and let it fly despite being hounded by both Tucker and James Harden. For a moment, Bogdanovic thought he was going to be fouled or blocked by the two Rockets that were on him, but he knew as soon as he let it go that the shot was going in, and he wasn’t the only one.

“I knew it was good, I knew it was good as soon as he caught it,” Tucker said. “He got a good lift on it. I could just tell, as soon as he shot it, I knew it was good.”

The NBA is such a fickle sport. Before every game, there are always thoughts about what kind of defensive schemes and offensive attacks are going to be used but when a game is that tight it really is, as they say, a make or miss league.

“Sometimes it comes down to a shootout,” Donovan Mitchell said. “That’s what tonight was.”

The Rockets recent trade of Clint Capela and commitment to a small-ball approach gave this game all the possibility of being about whether or not the Jazz would be able to guard a five-out lineup through 48 minutes and what the Rockets would do without rim protection against a traditional center like Gobert.

Had Gobert finished better at the rim, the game could have ended up being about the advantage of having a 7-footer on the floor against the Rockets.

Of course, Houston has its own lethal weapons in Harden and Russell Westbrook, who combined for 67 points on the night, mostly on attacking the basket and from midrange.

Then there was Jordan Clarkson who too found ways to attack Houston, finishing with 30 points off the bench.

“Just trying to find the seams and get to the rim,” he said. “I know they don’t have a shot-blocker so I just continued to attack and find the next play and if someone is open make the pass.”

Clarkson came out of the game with 5:33 left to play and it was Snyder’s intention to get him back in. But the Jazz went on a 7-0 run to open the game up a little so when Snyder called on Clarkson, he told the Jazz coach to go ahead with the guys that were in the game.

“We were playing well, I just told him to let them rock,” Clarkson said. “We were scoring and rotating defensively. I did my role and played my minutes and tried to impact the game as much as I can. But they had it going at that time so I just told coach to let them rock.”

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Rock they did.

After Bogdanovic hit the game-winning 3, he was stormed by his teammates on the court and let out what he said were some expletives in his native tongue. Then after it was all over he noted that not only was it a game-winner but also could end up being a much bigger deal later in the season.

“It’s potentially a tie-breaking game,” Bogdanovic said. “This game is going to be huge at the end of the season.”

The Jazz improved to 34-18 on the season and have split their two games against the Rockets with their final matchup of the season coming on Feb. 22 on the second night of a home back-to-back set.