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The music thumped as Rudy Gobert made his way to center court for the jump ball.

"You only get one shot … ," the song's chorus cautioned.

Fortunately for the Utah Jazz, Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem, doesn't sit on the NBA's Board of Governors.

The Jazz had a chance to close out their first-round playoff series on their home floor Friday night, to be rid of the Los Angeles Clippers and advance to Western Conference semifinals for the first time since 2010.

They blew it, falling in agonizing fashion, 98-93, at Vivint Smart Home Arena.

And now they really are down to their final shot.

Gordon Hayward scored a game-high 31 points and George Hill had 22 points and five assists. But it wasn't enough on a night when Utah's other shooters went cold, connecting on just 26.9 percent of their 3-point attempts. And not on a night when L.A.'s superstar point guard Chris Paul would score 29 points and dish out eight assists, willing his team to a do-or-die Game 7 on Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles.

The Jazz stumbled too long and fell behind too far Friday for their furious comeback to be completed.

Utah trailed 91-79 with just over three minutes to play. That's when all-star forward Gordon Hayward banged down a 3-pointer that would kick-start their rally, ending when Hayward's straight-away 3 with 43.6 left made it 96-93.

A nervous but hopeful chant of "Beat L.A." broke out among the crowd of 19,000-plus.

But Joe Johnson, the Jazz's buzzer-beating savior in Game 1 and the best clutch option of these playoffs, fired off a contested 3-pointer in the game's final seconds and this time came up short.

And Paul iced the game with free throws on the other end.

Jazz center Rudy Gobert had 15 points, the third and final Jazzman to finish with double-digit scoring numbers. The Clippers, meanwhile, had five with 10-plus points.

Snyder acknowledged "the newness of the situation" they were facing at Vivint Smart Home Arena.

"[But] I don't think we have been preoccupied with being green, so to speak," he said. "I think we've been able to focus. I felt like that would be the case, but you never know until you get into the thick of it."

The Jazz were in the thick of it Friday and got lost.

Now this series is tied at 3, fitting for a matchup that has been a model of parity. Through the first five games, the two teams had both scored exactly 495 points apiece, which Clippers center DeAndre Jordan called a "crazy" statistic.

"So it really just comes down to who wants it more," he said at his team's shootaround Friday morning.

The Jazz wanted it, and badly. The franchise hasn't been to the Western Conference semifinals since Deron Williams wore a Jazz jersey. Hayward, Gobert and Derrick Favors, the team's young veterans, have never known the second round.

To get there now, they will have to win on the road.

Things started well for the Jazz. As their home fans, dressed in white and waving towels, bellowed support, the Jazz built up an early nine-point advantage and finished the first quarter up 22-20. Gobert had eight points and four rebounds in the first alone.

By halftime, however, the Clippers had taken the lead, a 47-45 advantage, behind a 15-point first-half performance from their all-star point guard. The Clips stretched their lead in the third, carried a 78-70 advantage into the fourth quarter, needing to fend off the Jazz for 12 minutes to force a Game 7 in L.A.

And while Utah would rally, the Jazz ultimately squandered their last opportunity to play in this first-round series in front of 19,000 raucous fans in Salt Lake City.

But Snyder's squad has proved itself resilient and resourceful in this series, which is now knotted up at 3. They have survived the banging of knees, which left their star center fearing his playoffs were over seconds after they had started, and a bad sandwich, which left their all-star forward so sick he had to watch the second half of a game on his television at home.

Now can they survive a do-or-die road game against Paul and the Clippers, a team desperate to shake years of postseason disappointment ahead of a summer that could see the All-Star point guard Paul, all-star forward Blake Griffin and sharpshooter J.J. Redick leave Los Angeles in free agency?

Now they really only have one shot to do it.

Twitter: @aaronfalk