NEW ORLEANS — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 116-99 win over the New Orleans Pelicans from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Donovan Mitchell scores 18 straight to steal the game from New Orleans

Rookie Donovan Mitchell was having one of the worst games of his young career, only scoring two points and shooting just 1-9 overall through the game's first 32 minutes.

And then he just took over the contest with some of the most superstar-level highlight-reel plays that you'll ever see.

WHAT?!?!?#KiaROYpic.twitter.com/Anc2WGhuE0 — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) March 11, 2018

This is an *incredible* play. Mitchell jumps off of one foot from the edge of the paint, goes for the standard layup but sees the waiting Anthony Davis, brings the ball back down (even briefly holding it in two hands), then somehow scoops it up from the other side of the rim and in. It's bonkers.

On the next play, he has this layup against Emeka Okafor, but chooses to dunk it in instead, just to be safe. And maybe to emphasize the play a little bit.

The switch has been flipped 💡 pic.twitter.com/RKxaKXGrLA — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) March 11, 2018

Maybe my favorite possession in this stretch wasn't a Mitchell bucket, but just a drawn foul. At this point, Mitchell has scored 10 in a row, and Jrue Holiday is determined to get the stop. Holiday's a long, intelligent, and difficult defender, so it looks like Mitchell might have to hand the ball off to somebody else. But instead, he uses Holiday's aggressiveness against him, crosses him over to get past, and gets fouled at the rim.

Mitchell goes to the line after trying to end Niko Mirotic's life: pic.twitter.com/ZtmGZ0rV9c — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 11, 2018

"When you go against a guy like Jrue Holiday, I respect him a lot," Mitchell said. "He's a great defender. It was hard to get shots off."

All in all, Mitchell outscored the Pelicans 18 to 6 over a period of just three minutes and 23 seconds. Mitchell turned a sketchy Jazz performance earlier into a win, all by himself.

Mitchell finished with 27 points on 10-21 shooting. In the 41 minutes when he was on the floor, the Jazz outscored the Pellies by 25 points. That's superstar-level impact, and Jazz fans have to be thrilled to watch Mitchell in a Jazz uniform for years to come.

2. Ricky Rubio's near-triple double keeps Jazz alive

At halftime, there were some awful signs for the Jazz.

• Derrick Favors picked up three fouls in under six minutes in the first quarter, and had to sit the rest of the first half. His replacement, Ekpe Udoh, picked up three fouls himself in only two and a half minutes on the court.
• The Jazz were shooting 33 percent overall and only 27 percent from three. It's not like they were scoring from the line, either, with only seven in the half.
• Anthony Davis had six blocks (and finished with 10), three steals, in addition to the 14 points he scored in the half.
• The Jazz had nine turnovers, including four bad ones from Joe Ingles.
• After a great game Friday, Jae Crowder went 0-7 in the first half. His bench-mates Royce O'Neale, Jonas Jerebko, and Ekpe Udoh combined for 0-7 between them as well.
• As previously mentioned, the Jazz's season leading scorer, Mitchell, only had two points at halftime, shooting 1-8 in the half.

.@rickyrubio9: 30p/7a/10r | Check out his killer double-double ⬇️#TakeNotepic.twitter.com/yXr3OJ2jsl — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) March 11, 2018

But Rubio's second half wasn't much worse: he nearly finished with a triple-double, with 30 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. Jazz head coach Quin Snyder gushed about Rubio's impact.

"When you think about Ricky over the course of the season, it's just the progress he's made with his comfort level," Snyder said. "He almost had a triple double."

"He's developed so much even in just the past year," Mitchell agreed. He cited Rubio's improving 3-point shot, the one-foot fading jumper, and his layups as all things that he's gotten more comfortable with in the last year.

That productivity changes everything for the Jazz. When Rubio is a scoring threat, that opens up opportunities for Gobert, Favors, Ingles and Mitchell, his starting-lineup mates. Rubio is pretty smart about knowing when to attack and when to set things up for others, and he mastered that Sunday night.

3. How about Anthony Davis, though

After winning 10 in a row and shooting all the way up to fourth in the Western Conference standings, Davis sprained his ankle and missed Friday's Pelicans game against the Wizards.

Coming into Sunday's game, Davis was questionable to play. He went through warmups at half speed, and early in the game he took his time getting up and down the court. But in an important game like this, his team needed him.

He impacted the game in a monster way, with 25 points, 11 rebounds and 10 blocks. He didn't always look comfortable on offense, missing 13 shots, but he went to work on the other end of the floor. Davis' rim protection changed the way that the Jazz played the game, and kept everyone in check until Mitchell took over at the end of the third quarter. It's not a coincidence that much of Mitchell's run happened as Davis sat.

In the fourth quarter, though, he didn't score. Gobert blocked him once, but the Jazz did a nice job of keeping his opportunities to a minimum, and it made it much easier to run away late.

Props to Davis for giving it his all, finding a way to impact the game on the defensive end.

He got MVP chants during the game, and understandably so: he averaged 35 points and 13 rebounds per game in February. I think James Harden has the MVP race locked up given Houston's team success (and his status as the league's leading scorer), but Davis is probably second in that race from my eyes right now.

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