Mitchell, Gobert lead Jazz to victory over Nets

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

BROOKLYN — Donovan Mitchell drove to his right into the paint, he jumped, hung and put the ball high off the glass into the hoop. The Jazz were happy to have Mitchell back.

That scoop and score was the start of Mitchell’s take over late in the game. He followed that shot with a driving floater and then nailed a 3-point shot. Three possession. Three buckets. The first one gave Utah the lead; the next two helped them keep it in a 101-91 win over Brooklyn on Wednesday.

Utah improved to 10-12 on the season with the win.

Mitchell scored 29 points in his return from missing the last two games. Mitchell did most of his damage in fourth quarter and scored 14 points in the final 12 minutes to spark a comeback run.

“Keep being aggressive,” Mitchell said of his mindset. “When you have your teammates encouraging you like that, your confidence level is at an all-time high.”

But as good as Mitchell was, Rudy Gobert may have been better. Gobert ended the game on a strong note — catching the ball off the backboard, spinning around Jaren Allen and slamming it down with authority with 1:02 remaining. That dunk gave the Jazz a six-point lead and helped end the Nets’ hopes. It was the exclamation point to a strong night for the big man.

“Big Fella doing what he does,” Mitchell said.

Gobert scored 23 points and 16 rebounds in the contest. And he was one of the only Jazz players to get going early.

The Jazz's early-season problems came around once again in the first half. Utah turned the ball over frequently, struggled to make a 3-point shot (or really any shot outside of a Gobert dunk), but there was something different this time: the Jazz defended.

Utah held Brooklyn to 16 first-quarter points and just 42 first-half points. That softened the blow of a less than explosive offense early.

"We have to play defense, that will hold us in the games," Raul Neto said. "We were not scoring at all, but we were getting stops."

Gobert was one of the few who was scoring. The French big man had 13 points and 11 rebounds in the first half while demonstrating some dominant defense. Brooklyn struggled with his presence and Gobert finished with four blocks in the game.

Gobert's importance was illustrated by a late third-quarter run by Brooklyn. He went to the bench with the Nets leading 64-63 with just over three minutes to go in the quarter. Brooklyn immediately went on a 9-0 run and outscored Utah 14-7 to end the quarter. Brooklyn’s Spencer Dinwiddie scored 14 of his 18 points in the third quarter to help push the Nets to a 78-70 lead entering the final frame.

That’s when Mitchell, Gobert and the Jazz defense took over. The Jazz outscored the Nets 31-13 in the fourth quarter to come back for the win.

"We knew that if we played defense for a full quarter, we were going to win this game," Gobert said.

And that's just what the Jazz did.

It was a homecoming of sorts for Mitchell. The second-year guard was born in nearby Greenwich, Connecticut and said he had about 250 people there to watch him. Mitchell gave them a show — especially late.