Cleveland • With less than 2 minutes left Sunday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, Rudy Gobert muscled Cavs center Jarrett Allen under the hoop, then perfectly positioned himself to snag the rebound out of the air after Royce O’Neale’s missed 3 caromed off the rim.
When Allen then overplayed Gobert — diving in to his right to try and poke the ball away — the Frenchman took one dribble and two emphatic steps to his left, swept the ball through the air, jammed it through the hoop, then let out an emphatic celebration with his signature flex pose.
Asked what was going through his head in that ebullient moment, Gobert smirked and pointedly quipped: “Rebounding is one way to get the ball.”
The throwdown proved something of a cathartic release for the clearly frustrated big man, who so badly wants an increased scoring role with the Utah Jazz, but who had to settle for six points on six shots over the course of his 38 minutes and 11 seconds in Sunday afternoon’s 109-108 victory over the young and sparky Cavaliers.
On the one hand, Gobert’s dunk ultimately provided Utah’s final points in the team’s fourth consecutive victory. On the other, though, he had his fingerprints all over the outcome regardless, racking up 20 rebounds, five blocked shots, and three assists, all while playing his usual stellar rim-protecting, perimeter-switching defense.
Afterward, his teammates marveled at the non-shooting influence he has.
“He impacted the game in a major way. That’s what he does for us,” said Donovan Mitchell. “Obviously, we all know he’s our defensive anchor, but [him] being there on the glass, we’re getting the ball, we’re getting outlets, we’re running. In a game where Hassan [Whiteside]’s not playing, it’s not solely on him, but a lot of that pressure’s put on him, and he rose to the occasion on the glass for us.”
“We’re lucky to have that luxury in a guy like that, who’s so selfless,” added Mike Conley. “He doesn’t need to score points to affect a game and dominate a game, and tonight, he even had opportunities when he caught the ball in the paint to go up and try to score, and instead he chose to make a play, to make a pass to the corner for an open 3. Not a lot of bigs would do that.”
Coach Quin Snyder was most succinct:
“Yeah, he was dominant.”
Roughly a minute before his dunk, Gobert got his fourth block of the game, tracking down Cavs star guard Darius Garland at the rim and swatting his layup away. And a minute or so after the dunk, Gobert did the same thing.
He acknowledged afterward that such plays simply represent his greatest opportunity to affect the outcome.
“I love to win, so I do whatever it takes to win when I’m on the court,” Gobert said.
Which doesn’t mean he wouldn’t like to try to affect the game by scoring some more, too.
“I’m not saying I enjoy not touching [the ball],” he added. “No matter what, I’m gonna do what it takes to try and impact the game and help my team win. Do I want the ball? Yes. Do I think that [I should get it]? Yeah, of course. [But] I can’t be complaining on the court — I’ve got to just keep playing and helping my team.”
All of which made that evisceration of Allen so satisfying.
For him — and for the rest of the Jazz, too.
“He’s finishing with a lot of explosiveness right now,” said Snyder.
“It’s a matter of will on those possessions, and when it mattered most, he got probably his most important offensive rebound and then the finish afterward, which changed a lot,” added Mitchell.
“Yeah, you can tell, you can tell,” concluded Conley. “When a play like that happens … a guy like Rudy, he does want the ball, he does want to finish, he does want to score points and have dunks and stuff, but when teams are scheming against that and not allowing it to happen, to get one finally at the end of the game and in a big part, I think it just gets him amped up and even more motivated for the other end of the floor. That’s what he does.”
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