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SALT LAKE CITY — Donovan Mitchell started an aggressive drive, before quickly stopping, sidestepping to his left and burying a 3-pointer just before the first-half buzzer.
That’s how Mitchell ended the half. But he was just getting going Saturday night in Los Angeles.
Mitchell scored 30 points on 13-of-23 shooting, dished out nine assists and grabbed seven rebounds to lead the Jazz to their best road win of the season with 120-107 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers at Staples Center.
In the final four minutes of the game, Mitchell shed Paul George with a quick stop and hit a mid-range jumper, dribbled inside for another jumper, and then hit a third-straight bucket as part of an 11-0 run in the final minutes that won the Jazz the game.
On the other side, Kawhi Leonard scored just two points in the closing quarter and Paul George had zero.
The win marked Utah’s first road victory over an opponent with a winning record. So in a sense, the win came as a surprise. But what Mitchell did was far from it. Utah’s third-year star has simply taken over lately at the end of games.
Against the Magic, it was Mitchell. Against the Hawks, it was Mitchell. Against the Blazers, it was Mitchell. In the last eight games, Mitchell has hit the 30-point mark five times — and much of the work has come after halftime. He’s turning into one of the elite scorers in the game.
You can point to his end-of-half three as proof. Or his nearly automatic midrange jumper at the end. Or when he ball-faked Leonard away and drove inside for a one-handed hammer that even had Clippers fans in awe.
“He picks his spots,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “He had one play. He got in the paint, he had been finishing and he missed Royce (O’Neale) in the corner. He told him that in timeout. I think his awareness of his teammates, coupled with his ability to attack, he's finding a good balance.”
Mitchell knows when to attack and when to set up his teammates. He had eight assists in the first half alone, but he knows when he needs to put things in his own hands.
Jordan Clarkson had 19 points in his second game for the Jazz, Bojan Bogdanovic had 17, and Joe Ingles finished with 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting from 3-point range. The Jazz as a whole shot 17 of 35 from 3-point range — helping Utah stay close after a sluggish start.
With 3:35 remaining, the Clippers had cut a 13-point Utah lead to just two, 109-107. The home team wouldn’t score again. It wasn’t just Mitchell. Bogdanovic hit a key 3-pointer and two free throws, and the Jazz played some shutdown defense.
That stretch pushed the Jazz to their most impressive win of the season. Utah (20-12) has now won seven of eight, but that run has been aided by a light schedule. Saturday’s opponent was anything but light.
“We're the same team we were a day ago,” Snyder said. “It's a good win for us. But you know, we need to keep getting better. I think that's why we're playing a little better because we've been really kind of honest with ourselves about the things we need to do to win.”
One of those things: rebounding. And the Jazz didn’t do that much early on. The Clippers (23-11) had 10 offensive rebounds in the first quarter alone and used those second chances to help build a 13-point lead. They were physical and aggressive and the Jazz didn’t match that early on.
“I feel like I wasn’t locked in the first quarter,” Rudy Gobert said. “As a team, especially myself, we just turned it around in the second half.”
After that head-scratching first-quarter effort, the Jazz did turn it around. They ended up outrebounding the Clippers 41-30 and without second-chance opportunities, the Clippers offense stalled. LA only scored 15 points in the final quarter.
“I think it was definitely one of the best, especially, in the fourth quarter,” Gobert said of the team’s defensive effort.
With that and Mitchell once again taking over, it led to the Jazz’s best win.
