Utah Jazz cruise past Sacramento Kings for seventh straight victory

The Jazz’s defense holding the Kings without a point for the first 3 minutes of Friday’s game and without a basket for the first 51/2 may have been enough to determine the outcome.

And if it wasn’t, well, rookie guard Grayson Allen dropping 19 of his career-high 23 points in 10 first-half minutes — on 8-for-8 shooting, no less — may have simply shocked Sacramento into submission.

An efficient outing for Utah on both ends paved the way for a not-that-close 119-98 victory — the Jazz’s seventh in a row and their 12th win in their past 13 games.

The team improved to 49-30 on the season — surpassing last year’s win total with three games yet to go.

“Overall, I’m happy with the way I played, happy with where I’m at now at the end of the year compared to the beginning of the year,” Allen said. “I still have in my mind plays where I did wrong, those stick out to me, but I’m very happy with the improvement that I’ve made.”

This matchup could hardly have started much better for the Jazz.

Rudy Gobert opened the scoring by cutting down the lane for a dunk off an assist from Donovan Mitchell. Ricky Rubio followed with a floating jumper. Then Mitchell drove in for a layup. Rubio added a free throw when Kings coach Dave Joerger was whistled for a technical foul for protesting his team getting four fouls called in less than 21/2 minutes of action. On the ensuing possession, Joe Ingles drained a 3. When Jae Crowder added another triple out of a timeout, every Jazz starter had scored, and Utah held a 13-0 advantage.

Sacramento wound up missing its first nine shot attempts before Buddy Hield finally connected on a 3-pointer with 6:37 to play in the opening quarter.

“I like how we came out defensively,” said coach Quin Snyder. “… Everybody guarded early, so I liked that. We built a lead and we were able to continue to play the right way, which was good to see.”

Not quite a minute after the Kings finally made a basket, Allen checked in for Ingles, ostensibly hoping merely to see his solid play from Wednesday night in Phoenix continue.

He wound up doing a bit more than that.

A mere 13 seconds after entering the game, he got on the scoreboard by banking in a floater. Two minutes later, a jumper connected. Less than a minute after that, Mitchell found him for a 3-pointer. After another minute or so, he’d connected on another trey. And about a minute after that, he spotted up in the corner, received a crosscourt fastball from Ingles, pump-faked the close-out defender into the air, sidestepped, reset, and sank his third triple of the opening period.

Less than 50 seconds into the second quarter, he added the Jazz’s two opening baskets of the period on a pair of layups through traffic — including one in which he contorted his body, absorbed contact, hung in the air, and got the ball to crawl over the rim.

He impressed his teammates with his efforts on both ends, though.

“He did his thing tonight. This is just the beginning. You see the way he’s creating, the way he’s poised; I think there’s a lot more,” Mitchell said. “The biggest thing we all see is his competitiveness on the defensive end — one possession, maybe two where his guy scored on him. I think he takes pride in that; that’s really where his focus has been. Once you play defense, the offense takes care of itself.”

Of course, Allen was hardly doing it by himself.

Gobert added to his running total of double-doubles with 17 points and 12 rebounds, while adding four blocks. Mitchell just missed a double-double of his own, finishing with 23 points and nine assists — against zero turnovers. Ingles contributed 17 points and seven assists.

In all, Utah hit 51.8 percent of its shots, and connected on 15 of 33 attempts from deep. The Jazz also totaled 30 assists on 44 made baskets.

The defensive numbers were nothing to look askance at, either, though.

While the Kings were undoubtedly hamstrung by second-year point guard De’Aaron Fox picking up three first-quarter fouls, and ultimately departing in the first half with a sore right foot, they simply could never get much going against Utah’s defense.

Sacramento shot just 41.3 percent for the game and made only 5 of 21. Hield led them in scoring with 17 points.

Still, it wasn’t all good news for the Jazz, whose injury woes continued. Derrick Favors (back spasms) and Kyle Korver (knee soreness) each sat out for a third straight game. Reserve guard Raul Neto, who played Wednesday vs. the Suns, sat out against the Kings with left ankle soreness. Meanwhile, starting point guard Ricky Rubio, who did not play in Phoenix, began this game in the lineup, but exited in the first quarter after just 4 minutes, 54 seconds of action due to a quad contusion.

Mitchell was big, filling in at point guard yet again. But this night belonged to Allen.

“He was nothing short of amazing. That kid works so hard and relentlessly at his craft every day,” said bench mate Georges Niang. “… I gotta give the kid a lot of credit. I’m happy for him, I know how hard he works, and it’s just super-awesome for him to get out there and contribute and be successful.”