The ball movement was sublime. The shooting was accurate. The defense was still a little lax, but the offense more than made up for it.
It’s almost as if the Utah Jazz morphed into the Golden State Warriors for a night.
The Jazz are rarely a transition team that can roll up 76 points in a half. And in Saturday night’s 125-113 win over the Los Angeles Clippers, they showed an ability to make shots and keep their collective foot on the gas pedal for 48 minutes. For a sellout crowd at Vivint Smart Home Arena, it made for a pleasant weekend night of substantial highlights — with just a tiny bit of drama at the end — as the home team pulled out a win.
“We’re a team that needs the ball to move from side to side,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “We had some timely shotmaking, so that gave us a big lift. We played well tonight. The ball moved, and that helped a lot.”
The 76 first-half points represented a season high for the Jazz. They put six players in double digits, led by rookie guard Donovan Mitchell’s 23 points and Joe Ingles’ career-high-tying 21 points.
The Jazz shot the ball well, making 55 percent from the field. They were 11 for 28 from 3-point range. They scored 50 points in the paint and 16 points in transition. Their offense — which had struggled for so much of the season — looked unstoppable in large doses.
As a result, the game was never in doubt, although the Clippers did pull within six points in the fourth quarter. The Jazz led by as many as 25 points and never trailed as the Clippers seemed stunned at Utah’s offensive prowess.
It was the kind of game the Jazz enjoyed a lot last season when they won 51 games and advanced to the Western Conference semifinals. But in this difficult season, it’s the kind of game Utah hasn’t seen much of.
“I think we were in a good flow,” Ingles said. “We wanted to get out and run when we can and shoot the ball when we can. We wanted to get to the rim. We moved the ball well. I think we had seventy-something points at halftime, which obviously shows that we moved the ball well.”
For as dominant a win as Saturday was, all wasn’t well with the Jazz. The defense that has been a usual staple for Snyder’s teams wasn’t there, as the Clippers scored consistently throughout the game.
Utah surrendered a game-high 31 points to Lou Williams, who also set a Clippers franchise record with 10 steals. Blake Griffin scored 25 points and Wes Johnson scored 17 points off the bench.
At the same time, the Jazz must be commended for being able to keep the Clippers at bay and closing Saturday night’s win out. They’ve struggled to close games, among a lot of other things this season. Saturday night was the tail end of a back-to-back, and the Jazz easily could have come out flat after a bad loss late Friday night to the New York Knicks.
“I thought they played a lot harder than us, which I rarely say,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “I thought they played desperate. They lost a game at home last night and they didn’t want to lose two in a row. I think they pressured us. I just thought they really played great.”
Utah improves its record to 19-27 on the season. Beyond Mitchell and Ingles, Rudy Gobert scored 16 points, grabbed seven rebounds and blocked three shots. Derrick Favors scored 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Alec Burks came off the bench to score 15 points. Ricky Rubio scored 12 points while handing out six assists and grabbing six rebounds.
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