Game Rewind: Pacers 88, Jazz 118

Indiana's (28-16) five-game win streak came to a halt on Monday night, as the team fell the Utah Jazz (30-13), 118-88 at Vivint Smart Home Arena. The loss snaps Indiana's string of three straight victories over the Jazz.

Fatigue clearly showed through the Pacers performance on the second night of a back-to-back in high-altitude venues. Indiana never led. The team seemed out of sync all night.

With 9:27 remaining and the Pacers trailing 85-65, Doug McDermott attempted a wide-open three from the corner. Not a single Jazz player was within arm's reach. The ball clanged off the rim as if it never had a chance. That shot summed up the night for the Blue & Gold.

The team finished just 39-of-93 (41.9 percent) from the floor, including a paltry 7-for-26 (26.9 percent) from beyond the arc. Aaron Holiday and Myles Turner finished as the team's highest scorers with 12 points. The 30-point loss is the worst of the season for the Pacers.

Donovan Mitchell's 25 points on 11-of-19 shooting led all scorers, while Rudy Gobert notched a double-double, tallying 20 points and 14 boards.

Utah broke an early 6-6 tie with a 7-0 spree to grab a lead with 7:42 left in the first. On back-to-back possessions, the Jazz found success driving the paint and dishing to Gobert for an easy finish on the backside.

After Sabonis' second bucket of the game trimmed Utah's lead down to three, the Jazz widened the margin to 18-10 with five straight points from Royce O'Neale. With 6:05 showing, Mitchell swiped the ball from Malcolm Brogdon and found O'Neale on the outlet pass. O'Neale finished with a strong right-handed flush, much to the delight of the home crowd.

Indiana managed to trim the deficit down to five, 25-20, on a floater from Aaron Holiday on the right side. But back-to-back buckets from Jordan Clarkson and Mitchell pushed the margin back to nine with 56.4 seconds to go.

Doug McDermott connected on a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 45.8 seconds remaining to cut Indiana's deficit to 29-23 before the quarter ended.

Four quick points from Domantas Sabonis, including a tough second-chance tip-in, helped trim the deficit to 31-27, at the 10:05 mark of the second. But, the Jazz responded with an 8-0 spurt, five from Georges Niang to give Utah its first double digit lead, 39-27, with 8:13 to play in the first half.

After a McDermott 3-pointer from the left baseline cut the Blue & Gold's deficit to nine, Utah reeled off a 10-2 run, including five straight from Mike Conley, to extend its lead to 49-32 with 5:36 left. In his second game back after dealing with an injured left hamstring, he finished with 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting.

Six consecutive points from the Blue & Gold soon cut the deficit to 11. With 4:21 showing, Myles Turner swatted a Bojan Bogdanovic jumper into the hands of T.J. Warren. Warren then found a streaking Sabonis for the transition layup to give a 49-38 score.

A shot-clock beating 3-pointer from Jeremy Lamb on the right wing finally brought the Pacers back to within single digits, 53-44 with 1:37 remaining. But a Joe Ingles 3-pointer with 30.1 seconds leftg gave Utah the double-digit advantage at the break.
Out of the half, Bogdanovic's five quick points extended Utah's lead to 61-48. At the 10:48 mark, the former Pacer connected on his first 3-pointer of the game, an arcing shot from the right baseline over the outstretched hand of Sabonis.

Indiana's first bucket of the quarter came on Lamb's transition layup with 9:03 remaining. He would add another bucket just 33 seconds later to cut the Pacers' deficit to 63-48.

Other than Lamb, the Blue & Gold could just not get a shot to fall. To make matters worse, at the 6:04 mark, Warren and Mitchell were involved in a high-speed collision after Warren attempted to grab an errant pass from Brogdon. Warren sat on the floor clutching his knee for several seconds, but was not removed from the game.

Utah finally amassed a 20-plus point lead on Conley's second 3-pointer of the night at the 3:48 mark of the frame. By then, Indiana had scored just eight points in the frame.

Myles Turner helped the Pacers cut into the lead thanks to a strong late-quarter performance. The big man tallied five points in the final 40 seconds, including a deep three to bring Indiana's deficit to 18, 81-63, heading into the fourth quarter.

But the small surge failed to spark anything.

A reverse layup from McConnell brought Utah's lead down to 82-65, but a Dieng 3-pointer from the right baseline pushed the Jazz up by 20, once more.

At around the 8:00 mark, Mitchell and Aaron Holiday began a heated exchange of 1-on-1 basketball. The more experienced Mitchell found success driving against Holiday, however extended the conversation beyond the play. He was assessed a technical foul for taunting.

But, in unison with tonight's theme, McDermott missed the technical free throw.

Mitchell continued to put on a show, scoring nine straight Utah points – including a tough three-point play in the paint to give the Jazz a 96-73 lead with 7:01 remaining.

Mitchell's 3-pointer from the left wing helped Utah eclipse the 100-point mark, 101-79 with 5:18 to go.

For the rest of the game, Indiana failed to cut the deficit to fewer than 20 points. After Gobert finished a hook shot for his 20th point, Utah committed an intentional foul so fans could give Gobert an ovation while he made his way to the bench.

Both teams began rotating in their deep bench players, as Indiana began looking ahead to their first matchup against the Phoenix Suns this season.

Despite forcing 21 Utah turnovers, Indiana converted them to just 16 points. Conversely, Utah managed 25 points off 14 Pacers turnovers.

The Blue & Gold lost the rebounding battle, 53-50.

Justin Holiday finished with a career-high five blocks while coming off the bench.

T.J. McConnell finished with a game-high 10 assists. He fell four points shy of recording his second double-double of the season.

"That's the game, pretty much. We did get off to a slow start. Just didn't have a lot of movement. That team came out aggressive and they have a lot of weapons over there. They made us move defensively but we really didn't have any movement offensively. I thought we were settling in that first half, only one free throw attempt in the first half. So, it just showed that we didn't have that aggressiveness attacking the basket." – Pacers head coach Nate McMillan on not being able to find a rhythm.

"Just one of those nights. Some people call it a schedule loss, but I think that they came out and they moved the ball very well, forced our defense to work and we weren't hitting shots so it's a recipe for disaster." – Myles Turner on trying to find a rhythm

"After a game like this, Coach said just watch they way we didn't make shots, we didn't do our greatest and we didn't play the fourth quarter, so I feel like we just wash it away and just get ready for Phoenix. Day off tomorrow to just rest after the back-to-back and then get ready for Phoenix." – Domantas Sabonis on where they go from here

Indiana continues its road trip in Phoenix against Devin Booker and the Suns on Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 9:00 PM ET.

After a five-game road trip, the Pacers will return home to host the Chicago Bulls at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Wednesday, Jan. 29 at 7:00 PM ET. All-Star guard Victor Oladipo plans to make his season debut that night. Find Tickets »