MIAMI — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 103-102 loss to the Miami Heat from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz lack execution on game's final play

After Rodney Hood made a tough pull-up shot with 2:03 left, the Jazz had a 100-95 lead. After that, Miami scored on every possession but one, while the Jazz only scored on one.

Let's start from the end, though. Mitchell catches the ball in the backcourt, and attacks inside as Rodney Hood brings his defender over to force a switch or peel off for a three.

the main angle: pic.twitter.com/wCzrGpCoG8 — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) January 8, 2018

With that little time left, it's certainly unusual to see a player catch the ball in the backcourt, with all of his momentum going the other way. But Jazz coach Quin Snyder explained the playcall:

It was about "letting him play downhill," Snyder said. "Rodney was at the top of the key for a switch to peel out. Donovan downhill with a head of steam and Rodney peeling out to the 3-point line. Those are our two best offensive players."

When asked if he liked the final shot he got, Mitchell said "Not at all. They double teammed me, which means Hoodie was open. I should have made the right read."

Hood is open at the end, though it's probably too much to ask Mitchell to recognize that with two seconds left and with all of his speed carrying him to the hoop. That was probably a good play call with eight seconds left, but with five seconds, Mitchell doesn't have the time to make the play he needs.

Here's another angle on the play, and I thought this revealed more:

Here's another angle of the final play, by the way... Favors gets zero effective screens in (not that it's his fault) pic.twitter.com/GkaMoDV9em — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) January 8, 2018

Doesn't it seem like Favors should be setting more effective screens here? I'm sure those are supposed to be screens, not just Favors ineffectively standing there. On the other hand, maybe Mitchell (and Hood, for that matter) has to do a better job at running his man around Favors so he can get open. If Mitchell catches the ball at around the halfcourt line, not at Miami's 3-point line, and it has a better chance to succeed.

Finally, when Mitchell does catch the ball in the backcourt, Snyder spreads out his arms, as if to tell Hood not to go try to get the switch and peel off. Hood does anyway, and Mitchell ends up double-teamed.

All the way around: bad execution on the final chance to win the game.

2. The other plays that determined the game

How about the game-winning basket by Miami? Eric Spoelstra draws up this play:

Watch Richardson as the play develops. It's the sudden change of direction in the paint that gets him huge separation from Mitchell, which is what leaves Favors on an island when Richardson gets the catch. pic.twitter.com/HsiU3WBk1b — Couper Moorhead (@CoupNBA) January 7, 2018

Mitchell gets caught in the bunch, and so ends up making the decision to try to cut in front of Josh Richardson. But Richardson recognizes it and changes direction extremely quickly, and so Mitchell is trailing by several feet throughout the play. That means he can attack a hobbled Favors, who just doesn't move quickly enough to keep Richardson in front.

Again, it's reasonable to blame Mitchell here, and in typical Mitchell fashion, he took all of the blame. But should Favors, who clearly wasn't moving well after the injury, be in the game there over Ekpe Udoh, who is probably the better defender?

The previous play: Hood waits to clear the backcourt so he can safely dribble up the ball, but nearly waits too long. Then, he waves off Mitchell (by far the Jazz's best offensive player of the game), so he can take this one-on-one three attempt against Tyler Johnson.

Here's the whole Rodney Hood iso-pullup-3 sequence with 18 seconds left: pic.twitter.com/xP5n5mMEIL — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) January 7, 2018

Where Mitchell had remorse after the game, Hood had none. "His hands were down. I mishandled the ball, but that's a shot I make all the time."

Hood is right: he probably does make that shot 35 percent of the time. That's reasonable enough for in-game offense, but at the end of the game, you're probably better off looking for a 50-percent 2-point attempt than a 35-percent 3-point attempt. Snyder could have called timeout to reset things, like Spoelstra did above, though there's no guarantee of a better look.

For space reasons, we'll shorten the evaluation of the plays before that:

• Miami run side pick and roll, Jazz ice the screen, but Favors doesn't contain the dribble penetration, and Mitchell can't get below Kelly Olynyk on the roll. Mitchell has to foul Olynyk.
• Mitchell brilliantly drives in isolation and finishes with the right hand layup scoop on the left side, his signature shot.
• The Heat run a handoff play, and while Mitchell goes under, he can't keep up with Goran Dragic's speed and gets the blocking foul.
• Mitchell gets trapped, then Richardson strips the ball. As they both dive for the ball out of bounds, Mitchell touches it last after watching replay.
• In transition, the hobbling Favors gets beat in transition by Richardson for the easy layup.
• Mitchell drives, but dumps the ball to Favors, who is able to corral the somewhat off-target pass. Favors gets stripped the first time he goes up, but then avoids contact on the second shot with a wild hook that's not very likely to go down. Favors has to either draw contact here or just be more patient.
• Mitchell gets screened off the ball, but Favors makes a really nice play in defending Dragic's layup attempt. It goes off the back of the rim.

3. Donovan Mitchell's third quarter

The Jazz have had third quarter struggles this season, including their last contest against the Denver Nuggets where they lost the period 38-16. The Jazz came out of halftime much better on Sunday afternoon, though, and it was all thanks to Mitchell.

Mitchell scored 11 points by himself to lead off the third, and he showed off his versatile skillset: driving layups, pull-up jump shots, and feet well-beyond-the-line threes. But after letting his teammates score a couple of baskets, Mitchell added the highlight-reel play of the game:

🕷️🤯🤯🤯🕷️@spidadmitchell#NBAVote#KiaROY#UTAatMIApic.twitter.com/Hv1mwuok6a — Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) January 7, 2018

Once Mitchell pointed upwards, I saw the alley-oop coming. But I thought Sefolosha's pass was a little bit off target, and was likely to end in failure. Nope! Mitchell's mid-air adjustment to catch the ball with one hand and then finish is one of the highlight dunks of the NBA season.

Mitchell didn't want to talk about the dunk at the end of the game, understandable given all of the plays above he was involved with. But the play put on display Mitchell's elite athleticism, and it wouldn't surprise anyone to see Mitchell invited to the dunk contest.

He's said he'd participate if he's invited, though he might not win. As he told Michael Rapaport on his podcast:

“I’ll do it. But if you’ve seen Aaron Gordon, Derrick Jones and all those guys, I’m not going to win it. But I’ll do it.I would love to do it. That would be amazing."

"I keep telling people this joke. I grew up with Derrick Jones, like around him for a long time. I’veprobably done 13 dunk contests in my life. I lost 12 to Derrick Jones....So I would definitely do it. I got some dunks that I think would be cool.”

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