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SALT LAKE CITY — Donovan Mitchell stopped the question before it was even finished.
"You have struggled in the fourth quarter the last 10 games," a reporter began.
"All year," Mitchell jumped in.
Mitchell said he was mostly pleased with the looks he got to closeout the game Monday night. There was the potential game-tying layup where he thought he was fouled (replay showed his arm clearly got hit), and then two wide open 3-pointers in the final minute that hit off the rim.
Three good looks; three misses.
That's how Mitchell and the Utah Jazz finished the game off Monday in a tough 117-111 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks at Vivint Arena. A 2-point game with a minute left to play slipped away.
"I gotta be better — I'm typically alright in that situation," Mitchell said. "My teammates trust me, I trust myself."
Mitchell, though, isn't wrong about the year-long struggle; in clutch situations this season, Mitchell is shooting just 40% from the field and 25% from the 3-point line. Those aren't great numbers for a player the Jazz count on, and is at least partially why the Jazz are just the 22nd best team in the clutch this season, record wise. The three-time All-Star scored just 2 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter.
But there was a reason Mitchell didn't go scorched earth (like he did Friday after the Jazz lost to the San Antonio Spurs) following the game. Yes, the Jazz lost a second-half, double-digit lead once again, but at least Monday night's felt different.
Against the Bucks, it was less of a collapse and more just a wounded team taking a punch from the defending champions — a punch they handled well for much of the night.
Utah was without Bojan Bogdanovic (left-calf strain), who famously beat the Bucks on a buzzer beater in 2018, and lost Danuel House Jr. to a knee injury in the first quarter — House will have an MRI on Tuesday. Rudy Gobert, who finished with 18 points and 14 rebounds, said he was in good spirits in the locker room.
"These are the types of games, hopefully, we are going to continue to be in and ideally finish on the other side," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said.
The Jazz put together one of their best runs of the season — a near 10-minute stretch to start the third quarter where they outscored Milwaukee 32-12 to take an 11-point lead. They got masterful playmaking from Mike Conley and Mitchell, and Gobert led a stifling defense.
The Jazz ran on all cylinders and played at a level they've struggled to hit for much of the season. Conley found his shot again, going 10 of 13 from the field for 29 points in the game, and Utah erased a 9-point halftime deficit to take a double-digit lead.
The run would have been enough to bury lesser opponents; a healthy Bucks team isn't one of those.
Giannis Antetokounmpo took over the game late to lead a 26-9 run for the Bucks, who reclaimed the lead. He finished with 30 points and 15 rebounds on Monday. Milwaukee, though, isn't just Antetokounmpo. The Bucks have been near perfectly constructed around their perennial MVP candidate, and that was visible late in the game.
Jrue Holiday, Wesley Mathews and Jevon Carter combined to make life tough on Mitchell and Conley on the perimeter. The Bucks adjusted their pick-and-roll coverage in the fourth quarter, trapped up higher in order to take away what had been working so well for Utah in the third quarter.
"I was happy with what we were able to manufacture at different times in the fourth," Conley said
The shots, though, didn't go in. Utah started the game hitting 10 3-pointers in the first quarter but hit a cold spell late. The Jazz went just 6 of 21 from the field in the fourth quarter and were outscored 28-18.
Mitchell went 1 for 8 from the field and 0 for 4 from 3-point range in the final quarter, and was 10 of 32 from the field and 5 of 17 from 3-point range for the game.
"When you see 32 shots and 17 3s, you go right to that," Mitchell said. "But I like the looks I got, my teammates like the looks I got. I'll be better."
