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SALT LAKE CITY — If there was a game that showed pretty much everything the Jazz have done this season, Friday's win against Golden State was it.
Elite drives by Donovan Mitchell finishing with high-flying dunks? There was that. The bench unit giving up big runs to end quarters? That too.
There were moments filled with slick ball movement to find open shooters. And long stretches where the Jazz offense stalled out with poor spacing and bad reads.
There were some great blocks by Rudy Gobert. And some bad transition defense.
The Jazz gave up offensive rebounds, had problems switching on defense, and got a big shot from Bojan Bogdanovic to help hold on for a win.
With 1:49 left, Bogdanovic buried a 3 that gave the Jazz the lead for good (Mitchell followed that 3 up with his own triple moments later).
That was enough for Utah (15-11) to escape with a win over the injury-riddled Golden State Warriors 114-106 Friday at Vivint Arena.
And it was quite the escape act. Against any other team, the Jazz might not have been able to pull it off.
“I think our habits have got to be better,” Bogdanovic said. “We can’t wait to get punched in the mouth because against better teams than the Warriors are, we are going to struggle and we are going to get Ls. But a W is a W.”
A big reason for the W on Friday was Bogdanovic. Yes, he hit the big shot at the end, but he hit plenty more. Bogdanovic was 8 of 13 from 3-point range for 32 points. He scored 20 of those points after halftime. His offense sparked the Jazz late in the second quarter and then again in the third.
With Mitchell proving to be quite the threat in the pick and roll (he had two tomahawk dunks and a few more finishes at the rim), the Warriors (5-22) simply wanted to get the ball out of his hands. That meant leaving Bogdanovic open in the corner. And he made them pay.
“They were more scared of Donovan than my 3s,” Bogdanovic said. “Donovan did a great job of distributing the ball for all of us.”
Mitchell finished with three assists to go along with 28 points. The eight 3-pointers tied a career-high for Bogdanovic.
“A lot of times he'll make them when they count,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “He's really good in those late-game situations.”
The Jazz as a whole though struggled with the early-game situations.
The soldout crowd was on its feet as the clock ticked to zero, applauding its team, but in the first half, it was a much different emotion.
Late in the second quarter, the boos starting coming down. No one had gotten back in transition, allowing Glenn Robinson III to run unimpeded down the lane for a dunk that put the Warriors up by 13. That was the final straw; the crowd had seen enough.
And, frankly, those boos could have come much sooner.
This week the Jazz have talked often about how they need to move the ball better, how they have to trust each other more, how they have to bring better focus and energy. That all sounded nice. Then they came out and allowed Golden State to get eight offensive rebounds in the first quarter. And then Mitchell caused a fan to scream “Pass the ball!” as he forced a midrange shot with Bogdanovic standing alone in the corner.
It was a bad display. A confusing one even.
That Jazz were consistently beaten to loose balls.
“Just staring, watching,” Mitchell said. “We can't rely on Rudy, Jeff (Green) Ed (Davis), Bojan, we got to help and get in there.”
Things changed in the third. The energy picked up and the Jazz claimed control of the game. That is, until the bench came in and gave up an 87-point lead. That forced Utah to have to sweat it out against a team that was coming off losses to Memphis and New York.
But they eked it out.
