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Rubio and O’Neale shine as Mitchell-less Jazz beat Spurs for fifth win in a row

Utah Jazz's Ricky Rubio (3) drives around San Antonio Spurs' Dejounte Murray during the second half of an NBA basketball game Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018, in San Antonio. Utah won 120-111. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)

San Antonio • From the first possession on Saturday night against San Antonio, Ricky Rubio played like an All-Star.

Yes, that Ricky Rubio.

He hit 3-pointers and mid-range jumpers. He got to the basket. He found open teammates and locked up the Spurs defensively.

And yet, he wasn’t the only reason the Utah Jazz were able to defeat the Spurs 120-111 in a game they had no business winning.

Rubio scored a career-high 34 points, while handing out nine assists. But on a night the Jazz were without star rookie guard Donovan Mitchell, it was the rookie nobody talks about, Royce O’Neale, who stole the show.

“It’s like I don’t know you now,” Jazz center Ekpe Udoh joked to O’Neale in the locker room following one of their best wins of the season, when O’Neale put on a chain bearing his No. 23.

“He acts like I don’t wear this every single day,” O’Neale said, responding to his older teammate giving him a bit of ribbing.

O’Neale who scored a career-high 18 points, and grabbed five rebounds while handing out five assists. When the Spurs made a furious run in the fourth quarter, it was O’Neale who hit a pair of corner 3-pointers to keep San Antonio at bay. And it was O’Neale who made the biggest play of the game, a steal and a thunderous dunk, to give the Jazz a 114-109 advantage with 1:29 remaining.

“I was just trying to be in the right place at the right time,” O’Neale said. “I played the passing lane, and I was fortunate to come up with a big play.”

Call the Jazz resilient. Call them team #nosleep. Or simply call them a team owning a five-game winning streak after a win that may be the best of the season.

Utah played without its best perimeter weapon in Mitchell, and played through travel issues from Phoenix that left it arriving in Texas at 5:30 a.m. in beating a Spurs team that’s one of the best in the league at home.

Rubio and O’Neale were the heroes, but there were plenty of heroics to go around.

Rudy Gobert notched a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds, and added three assists and three blocked shots. Derrick Favors continued his solid play of late with 14 points and six rebounds. Raul Neto came off the bench to score a season-high 12 points. Joe Ingles scored 10 points and hit a huge 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter.

“I think we’ve been better defensively and it makes the offense better,” Gobert said. “We’ve been moving the ball and we’ve been sharing the ball. We kept making shots tonight. We had fun.”

A team can take multiple lessons from an 82-game season, and the Jazz were able to use on Saturday a lesson they learned in December, when they lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder on the tail end of a back-to-back after leading for much of that game.

The Jazz ran out of gas that night against OKC, something that looked possible on Saturday night. But Utah coach Quin Snyder took his starters out early in the third quarter when he sensed fatigue, and an O’Neale-led bench unit held the lead against the Spurs starters.

Because of that move, the Jazz starters were able to come back in the fourth quarter and have enough energy to finish.

“I think we were mentally tough, particularly in the third quarter,” Snyder said. “We turned the ball over, and you do that when you’re a little fatigued. But our bench came in and those guys were terrific. They really stabilized us down the stretch.”

The Jazz are still under .500 at 24-28 on the season. But the overall tenor and mood of the locker room, so tense in the past few weeks, has lightened considerably. In the moments following the win, Udoh strolled to the shower loudly singing the New Edition classic “Can you stand the rain.” Joe Johnson, who was rested, joined him.

On a night where the Jazz could’ve rolled over, Rubio and O’Neale saved them. It would’ve been hard to predict that before Saturday.

“I know Rubio’s a great guard, but that’s the best I’ve seen him play,” San Antonio point guard DeJounte Murray said.