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 Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information.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.
SALT LAKE CITY — The Los Angeles Clippers waved the white flag early — really early.
The Clippers began the second half Friday with just one original starter on the court. Maybe they figured a 37-point deficit was too much to overcome, or maybe they glanced over to the Jazz bench, saw how well their reserves had played and figured, "Why not try that?"
Coming into the game, Utah's injury report was a long one. It included Donovan Mitchell, Bojan Bogdanovic, Hassan Whiteside, Danuel House Jr. and Trent Forrest — five rotation players, including two starters and one All-Star.
So, of course, the Jazz played hands down their best half of the season.
The team jumped out to a 37-point lead in the first half en route to a 121-92 victory over the Clippers at Vivint Arena. Utah improved to 44-26 on the season and is a game up on Dallas for the fourth spot in the West.
The Jazz closed the half on a 30-4 run and outscored LA 41-14 in the second quarter. Rudy Gobert (five) had more field goals than the Clippers (four) did in the period. The first half was about as complete of a performance as Utah could ever hope for — even with all their players available.
Here are just the first half contributions:
- Gobert had 13 points, 12 rebounds and two block shots. His dominance down low in the second quarter turned what was already a blowout into a complete laugher.
- Jordan Clarkson had 11 points, five rebounds and four assists off the bench. He even threw a half-court alley oop to Royce O'Neale at the end of the second quarter that got everyone smiling.
- Eric Paschall had a dominant drive game, slicing through the defense to score 11 points.
- Nickeil Alexander-Walker got the start for Mitchell, and, at times, resembled the All-Star guard. He had 10 points and two assists in the first half and controlled the game.
- Rudy Gay had 7 points and eight rebounds, Juancho Hernangomez hit two 3-pointers, and Jared Butler was masterful running the team in his stints.
- The Clippers were held to 27.5% shooting
"I think we had a lot of guys that stepped up tonight, we're ready to play. I think we were connected defensively — particularly the second group, when they were switching, they were doing a good job and just the activity was good," coach Quin Snyder said.
That put it lightly. With an in-season trade and injuries, Snyder has still been working out what rotations are best for the team. He might want to remember some from Friday's game — and maybe every one of them. Everything worked against the Clippers.
To Gobert, it wasn't a performance that came out of nowhere, though. He said the team has been building up to a game like this — one that resembled Utah's 2020-21 regular season — over the last couple of weeks.
"I think we've been playing the right way — not just tonight but over the last few games," he said. "But yeah, tonight, we started tonight defending really well and offensively moving the ball, and we made some shots, we were driving the ball, running. It was great basketball, and I liked that we stayed consistent. We didn't give them any opportunity to get back into the game."
So consistent that by the end of the half, the Clippers were done. Clippers coach Ty Lue sat down most of his starting lineup, which was already lessened by the absences of Paul George, Norman Powell and Kawhi Leonard, and let the second half play out. Regulars Reggie Jackson, Marcus Morris and Nicolas Batum all played less than 15 minutes on Friday.
"They polished us, how about that?" Lue said. "It's one of those games, we just didn't have it; didn't have a lot of pop. Them being down their two top scorers, we let our guard down."
Butler led the Jazz with 21 points and seven assists, Clarkson had 20 points, and Gobert finished with 19 points and 16 rebounds.
