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SALT LAKE CITY — Royce O’Neale couldn’t help himself.
When he was asked about Donovan Mitchell who, after Thursday’s heroics, has brought the Jazz from fourth-quarter deficits in back-to-back games, O’Neale had some criticism.
“He’s been shooting the ball too much,” O’Neale deadpanned.
Mitchell saved the Jazz in Atlanta.
The third-year guard reentered the game with just under six minutes remaining and the Jazz down by 1 to a six-win Hawks team. Atlanta had been shooting lights out, Trae Young was in rhythm and playing with a friendly whistle, and the Jazz were flirting with a bad, bad loss.
But Mitchell came through again.
On Tuesday, he sparked a fourth-quarter rally against the Magic. On Thursday, he sparked another one.
Mitchell scored a quick 8 points to pull the Jazz ahead and then, with 13 seconds remaining, he drew a foul in the paint. Those two free throws sealed the Jazz's 111-106 win over Atlanta at State Farm Arena.
Mitchell scored 30 to lead Utah to its fourth straight win. The Jazz improved to 17-11 on the season.
As soon as Mitchell checked back in in the fourth, he took over the game. He made a pullup jumper to give the Jazz the lead and then hit a driving layup on Utah’s next possession. He made a reverse layup, then drove inside with search dribble before turning and softly putting it in, and started a fast break with a quick outlet pass that to a layup.
🎥| Jazz: 111 Hawks: 106#TakeNotepic.twitter.com/PO9uAEAms2
— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) December 20, 2019
Utah finished the game on a Mitchell-fueled 24-13 run.
"We want him to be that aggressive at the right times in the game,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “It’s hard to do that for 36, 38 minutes. For us to be able to move the ball and everyone touch it and have it come back to him — that’s the key for us, is to trust each other. And obviously late in the game to trust Donovan.”
Mitchell rewarded that trust. He scored 15 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter as he pushed the Jazz past the Hawks.
“He’s a closer,” O’Neale said. “He likes to create at the end, whether it’s his own shot or kicking it out to somebody else.”
With the Jazz up by just 3 in the closing seconds, Mitchell drove into the paint and jumped up high. He was forcing the Hawks to either make a play on the ball or foul him. It was a closing-type play and one that he made regularly down the stretch. Mitchell finished the game attacking the rim. And that led to the Jazz win.
The fourth-quarter charge was enough to keep Utah in the win column, but it’s fair to wonder why the Jazz needed some late-game heroics playing against a six-win team that had just lost five straight games by an average of over 17 points.
But coming off a 23-point loss to the Knicks, the Hawks played some inspired basketball. Young scored 30 points, Jabari Parker dropped in 23 points as he overpowered Utah’s bench, and Atlanta shot 38% from 3-point range. And with the Jazz only shooting 6 of 24 from deep, the game turned into a grind for Utah.
“They played really hard tonight,” Snyder said of the Hawks. “They were aggressive defensively. I thought they attacked, they knocked us back on the defensive end early in the game.”
Atlanta forced Utah out of its normal sets and the Jazz struggled to adapt. But they eventually righted the ship.
“I was happy to see us stabilize in the second half, defend and play with more force offensively,” Snyder said.
The coach credited some individual performances like Rudy Gobert’s defensive presence down the stretch (he finished with 20 points and 13 rebounds), O’Neale’s defense on Young in the final quarter and him getting a block and a steal in consecutive possessions in the closing minutes, and, of course, Mitchell’s game-changing fourth quarter.
