HOUSTON — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 112-102 Game 5 loss to the Houston Rockets from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Chris Paul even more sensational than Game 4, Jazz run out of pieces

With 5:30 left in the game, the Jazz were missing their best offensive player (Donovan Mitchell), their point guard and floor general (Ricky Rubio), and their James Harden defensive specialist/best speed scorer (Dante Exum) due to injury.

On the floor was an undrafted rookie (Royce O'Neale), an undrafted, unathletic balding Australian father with a somewhat insulting nickname (slow-mo Joe Ingles), a player who got more DNP-CDs in the second half of the season than games played (Alec Burks), a player who has shot 32 percent for this year's playoffs (Jae Crowder), and the admittedly-great but still offensively-limited former 27th pick in the NBA draft (Rudy Gobert).

And this lineup scared the Rockets halfway to death. After going down by eight, this rag-tag group went on a 7-0 run to cut the deficit to one with 4:30 left.

That's when nine-time All-Star and eight-time All-NBA selection Chris Paul went to work. Paul was sensational to close the game for the Rockets, scoring 13 straight points. Two of those shots were more open than they should have been, but eight of those points were just ridiculous, tip-your-cap shots that the Jazz couldn't do a whole lot more about.

Paul finished with 41 points on 22 shots, including 8-for-10 from three. He added 10 assists, seven rebounds and didn't have a single turnover. It's his highest scoring night in the last five seasons, regular season or playoffs, and he's only hit eight threes in one other career game. He was absurdly good, and I don't think the Jazz's defense on him was lacking much. It was just a phenomenal performance.

Last season, the Rockets lost to the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semifinals in six games. The Spurs stopped Harden and the Rockets' offense had nowhere else to turn.

The Jazz did the same thing: they figured out Harden. The presumptive MVP was awful tonight, scoring only 18 points on 22 shots and adding three turnovers next to only four assists. This year, the Rockets had Paul and it was enough.

Still, you have to give credit to the Jazz for staying in the game, despite all of the injuries and the adversity. This could have been an easy closeout game for Houston, and it was anything but.

"I don't know if you can ask for a better effort from our group tonight," Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said.

2. Donovan Mitchell goes off (in two ways)

Mitchell was again absurd in the third quarter, just being completely dazzling to drag the Jazz back into the game and eventually giving them the lead. He finished with 22 points in the quarter, shooting 8-11 from the field. He added three assists and three rebounds in the period, and only had one turnover.

Once again, he's doing just superstar-level stuff. I have run out of words for what Mitchell is capable of, partially because we haven't really seen it before. He's scoring from all three levels (at the rim, midrange, and from beyond the 3-point line) and doing so despite all of the attention from the defense on him.

This was also probably the best game of Mitchell's career in terms of finding a balance between scoring and finding teammates. That's only the third time he's gotten at least nine assists, and in the first two instances, he scored under 20 points. On Tuesday night, Mitchell was able to do both.

That continues another trend we've seen from Mitchell: improving throughout the season. We talk about the rookie wall, that rookies usually run into about 40-50 games into their season because they're not used to playing 82 games a year. Mitchell was breaking new ground in game 93. It's unprecedented.

And yet, because this is a team seemingly cursed by injuries, there was a sour note. Mitchell had to leave the game with seven minutes left due to a foot problem of some sort. Mitchell described it after the game as being unable to move, and he did have to be helped off the court.

The good news is that the team took X-rays on Mitchell and they came back negative. He did leave the stadium in a boot, but it was for precautionary reasons, and he was moving around much better before putting the boot on. Mitchell did clearly have some swelling in his foot, but not a huge amount, and he was able to return to the Jazz's bench wearing slides. The injury will be evaluated more fully in Salt Lake City tomorrow.

That's good because it appears Mitchell wants to get back to work. He'll undergo his exit interview Wednesday, then take a well-deserved break along with giving him a chance to heal up. Then, Mitchell will work with Johnnie Bryant in the offseason. Who knows what he's capable of.

3. Reasons for optimism

We'll have much more coverage to come about the Jazz season that was over the next couple of days, but I thought it was notable that the Jazz locker room was in pretty good spirits after the game. Sure, they were disappointed to lose, but Snyder's postgame speech and the words from leaders on the team (including Derrick Favors) were all about what the team had accomplished over the course of the season.

There's a huge amount of optimism around this team. Jae Crowder called it "the beginning of an era" for the Utah Jazz, and that's a sentiment the whole roster seemed to agree with.

"It's been amazing. Coming off last summer, when no one had us making the playoffs. Have a rough start to the year, injuries, people starting to think about us losing on purpose to get draft picks, to fighting for a spot in the Western Conference Finals," Gobert said.

"I'm so proud of what we accomplished as a team, as a group, as a staff," he continued. "I'm just excited for the future."

The opposition noticed too. Harden, for one, called their season "unbelievable."

"Especially when no one expected them to be in the situation they're in right now. The sky is the limit for them," Harden said. "They have a great rookie this year in Donovan, some great pieces to go around him. Obviously, Quin Snyder is a really good coach. So they'll keep building and we'll see what happens."

The Jazz can't be done improving and this loss shows that. But there's no one who thinks this is the end of the Jazz's rise.

"We feel like we have so much room to grow," Gobert said. "It's just exciting."

That concludes another season of KSL.com's Triple Teams. I want to thank all of you for reading throughout the season, from the rough early games to the culminating run of the last few months. Your huge interest in and passion for Jazz coverage makes it possible for me to have an incredible career covering basketball, one of the neatest possible jobs in the world. I appreciate your support so, so much; I can hardly wait for next season to begin.

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