As Donovan Mitchell saw his teammate Rudy Gobert trapped by a media scrum Friday morning, he did what any good teammate would do: try to distract him during his interviews.
The 21-year-old rookie made exaggerated martial arts gestures and sound effects directly in Gobert’s eyeline, forcing him to snicker into a gaggle of microphones.
The atmosphere? Loose.
If there’s any leftover tension from Utah’s Game 5 collapse — the fourth-largest blown lead in NBA playoff history — to the Oklahoma City Thunder, there was no sign of it two days later ahead of Game 6 in Salt Lake City.
The Jazz will be looking to do the same thing they could’ve done Wednesday night: End the series and advance to the Western Conference semifinals against the Houston Rockets. And while the pressure is on for Utah to win its third straight playoff home game, they projected nothing but confidence.
There was, Gobert acknowledged, some wistfulness after the Game 5 loss.
“But after that, we just gotta prepare,” he said. “We’ve still got a great opportunity and, you know, we’re excited.”
The letdown was a bad one, coaches and players said, but it doesn’t dramatically alter the nature of the series. While Russell Westbrook and Paul George caught fire, coach Quin Snyder said it was on the Jazz defense (which temporarily lost Gobert and Derrick Favors to foul trouble) to challenge the Thunder’s stars more than they did in the third quarter, which saw all of their 25-point lead evaporate.
Mitchell said Gobert and Favors leaving the floor had a huge influence, but that it would fall more on the players who were in to play smarter. He faulted himself for taking “ill-advised” shots and going under certain screens on Westbrook, who scored 45 points in the game.
Many of the mistakes, he felt, were tied to the Jazz thinking they had Game 5 won. That’s another mistake they don’t plan on making again.
“We kinda let down our guard,” he said. “Being up 25 in foul trouble, thinking we had it in the bag. Clearly they had other thoughts. We just gotta continue to play as if we’re down or if the game is tied. That’s gotta be every possession.”
