Donovan Mitchell put his head down, drove, and felt the slap of a defender’s arm on his wrist. The referee blew the whistle for the 57th foul of the night.
This one, though, was music to Utah Jazz fans’ ears.
Mitchell turned an ugly game into a perfect night, sinking a free throw with less than a second on the clock to give the Jazz a 96-95 win over the Phoenix Suns on Monday night.
“That’s something we work on,” Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said. “The ball is in his hands and we trust him to make a play in space—and he did.”
Mitchell scored 26 points and Bojan Bogdanovic had a game-high 29 to help the Jazz improve to 3-1 on the year.
This one didn’t come easy for the Jazz. The team shot 38 percent and turned the ball over 23 times.
The Jazz trailed 85-79 with five minutes to play. That’s when Rudy Gobert and Utah’s defense clamped down.
“Obviously the fact that we made as many mistakes offensively as we did—we didn’t put our heads down after the mistakes,” Snyder said. “We got back and really worked to get stops. When you do that, you have a chance.”
The Jazz came up with key stops and Gobert proved clutch from the line himself. The big man finished with 15 points while going 11-for-12 from the stripe at Talking Stick Resort Arena.
“Just don’t give up,” said Gobert, who also grabbed 18 rebounds. “You never know in basketball. You’ve got to keep pushing and keep pushing. We thought we’d have an opportunity to win this game.”
With 10 seconds left and the game tied at 95, Suns forward Kelly Oubre missed a 3-pointer from the corner, giving the Jazz the chance for the win on the road. That’s when Mitchell received in the inbound pass in the backcourt and went to work, drawing the foul that led to the game-winning free throw.
Monday's Best
Mitchell got the game-winning free throw.
But, once again, Bogdanovic showed why he was such a valuable acquisition for the Jazz. The forward scored 29 points (8-of-13 shooting) and grabbed five rebounds to go with two assists, two steals and a block.
“Bojan’s a weapon,” Snyder said. “He’s so determined and competitive. He makes a lot of plays a lot of different ways.”
Key Stretches
Plagued by turnovers, the Jazz didn’t get the blender going the way they wanted to in the first half. But Bojan Bogdanovic keyed a huge sequence to close the second quarter. Bogdanovic knocked down a triple with 37 seconds left. After a defensive stop, Bogdanovic look like he was lining up another shot. Instead, he found Royce O’Neale open in the corner for a 3 to give the Jazz a 46-39 lead heading into halftime.
The Jazz were down 92-88 after a Ricky Rubio bucket with 2:47 to play. The Jazz answered with a sequence of three straight dunks, one each from Gobert, Mitchell and Bogdanovic, with two key steals sandwiched in between.
Significant Stats
91.6
Rudy Gobert was nearly automatic from the stripe on Monday night. The center attempted 12 free throws and hit 11 of them — good for 91.6 percent.
“Apparently it was important because we won by 1,” Gobert said. “I know I have to knock them down. When I’m aggressive, it opens things up for everyone else. I have to keep doing that.”
57
Pretty, it wasn’t. The Jazz and Suns combined for 57 fouls on the night, including a pair of Flagrant-1s. Foul trouble limited point guard Mike Conley to 20 minutes. The Jazz, however, were able to make good by going 32-of-39 from the line.
-15
Suns guard Devin Booker is a walking bucket. Booker finished the game with a team-high 21 points on Monday. But he also had a game-worst -15 plus/minus.
Notable
There was a familiar face in the Suns’ starting lineup Monday.
After two seasons with the Jazz, Ricky Rubio is starting a new chapter in the Arizona desert — and the point guard only had good things to say about his old squad.
Rubio credited Jazz head coach Quin Snyder with teaching him the importance even the smallest details can have in game preparation.
“Everything matters,” Rubio said. “That was something that stuck with me. Now I want to bring it along here. I know the things to do right and the things we don’t have to do. It’s something I’m trying to bring during practice and now that we’re starting to compete.”
Rubio had praise, too, for his former backcourt partner.
“I remember the first couple of weeks with Donovan Mitchell. I knew early on he was going to be good because he was learning, listening, and asking questions,” Rubio said.
The Jazz’s former point guard also believes his replacement, veteran Mike Conley, will fit in well in Utah.
“I’ve been on the team and I know how it works,” he said. “They’re going to be really tough. They take care of every detail. And they take the best out of every player. If you see Joe Ingles, Rudy Gobert, players who developed in that program and are being the best they can be, that’s going to happen with the new players that came, too. It’s going to be fun to watch them go along this season. I think they’re going to go deep in the playoffs.”
Up Next
Kawhi Leonard and the LA Clippers are headed to Vivint Smart Home Arena, for an early season matchup between two of the West’s best. The game tips off Wednesday night at 8 p.m. MT. It will be broadcast on ESPN and AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain.
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