SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 97-94 loss to the Boston Celtics from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz can't score down the stretch

The Jazz held a 94-88 lead with 2:25 left in the fourth quarter, and then let the Celtics go on a 9-0 run to win the game. What happened?

Let's start with the offensive end. After a Jae Crowder layup, the Jazz had four possessions. What happened so that the Jazz couldn't score? First of all, the Celtics played a lot of zone down the stretch, and that seemed to fluster Utah.

On the first one, the Jazz probably did the right thing. While Donovan Mitchell dribbled the clock down, he forced both perimeter defenders out to 35-feet, leaving Ricky Rubio wide open. Rubio dribbled in, took a jump shot that he usually hits, but missed it. So it goes.

Tonight's Triple Team breaks down the final four scoreless Jazz offensive possessions and two important defensive possessions that killed the Jazz late. The first was this one... actually I don't mind this shot from Rubio: pic.twitter.com/Qj0h2ycPZ3 — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 29, 2018

On the next possession, Mitchell comes off the screen and probes the defense. But while he's staying in between to take the space, he takes one extra dribble, which allows Jaylen Brown to steal the ball. Four Celtics are in the paint here and Mitchell needs to either find Rubio, or even better, Joe Ingles, for wide open threes.

Next possession, Mitchell takes one extra dribble in the in-between on the PnR... allowing Brown to dig down and steal the ball. Ingles and Rubio both open here... eyes out! pic.twitter.com/7LddPdmRtS — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 29, 2018

Next play, Mitchell just tries to take Terry Rozier off the dribble. He doesn't get that much separation, but he does force Aron Baynes to come down and help in the paint. Unfortunately, Mitchell just takes a wild floater, a bad shot while contested. Again, he has a wide-open shooter, Crowder, behind him.

Next play, Mitchell still sees the help, but this time takes this floater... Crowder's wide open. It's just a really tough shot. pic.twitter.com/IXdur3sUAT — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 29, 2018

The last offensive possession was the worst, though: the Jazz get the rebound with 40 seconds left — an obvious 2-for-1 situation. But the Jazz ignore head coach Quin Snyder's pleas to get the play going early. Ingles goes up to fake setting a screen for Mitchell and it actually works: Mitchell gets past his man, Baynes has to come up, and Jayson Tatum has to guard Rudy Gobert.

But then, Tatum closes out well on Crowder (who still probably should have either taken the shot, pump-faked and drove, or passed the ball to Gobert), bails out by passing out to Ingles, who then gives it back to Crowder. Crowder takes a bad three, gets blocked, then Ingles gets the rebound and misses his floater. Gobert gets beaten to the rebound by Brown.

Final play got yakety sax-y, but:
1) Crowder is actually pretty open for a corner three, but doesn't do any of the acceptable options of shoot, drive, or pass to Gobert down low. (Good closeout tho)
2) Gobert can't lose this rebounding opportunity to Brown. He just can't. pic.twitter.com/Nl64DB5nZR

— Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 29, 2018

So what went wrong? Mitchell made two big mistakes down the stretch: not going to his teammates quickly enough and forcing a turnover and a bad shot. Mitchell seemed like he was perhaps tired from carrying the offensive load, and I wonder if Ingles or Rubio should have had a chance with the ball in their hands. Rubio missed his shot, but I don't think he played poorly.

And then when Mitchell did make the right play, Crowder's hesitation and ultimately bad decision making on the last play cost the Jazz as well. And honestly, Gobert absolutely should have gotten that rebound. He should have won the physical battle against Brown and lost it. That hurts.

"We've put the ball in Donovan's hands late in the game all year. We got some open looks," Snyder said. "I thought we were just hesitant when the ball did move and the ball stopped a little bit."

2. What happened on the defensive end?

While the Jazz couldn't score on the offensive end, they allowed the Celtics to score on nearly every possession on the defensive end.

Two weren't especially the Jazz's fault: Greg Monroe made a tough spinning flick shot over Gobert, and Tatum dunked after Mitchell turned it over. But two plays could have been defended better: one resulted in FTs to Boston after a wide-open Tatum three, and another led to Brown's game-winning three.

Here's the first play:

The first defensive play... Mitchell/Crowder mess up the switch, Tatum gets a wide open three, but Gobert has to come out to contest it. After that, Jazz have no chance at the defensive rebound. (It'd be nice if Jae/Joe were vertically athletic, but they're not) pic.twitter.com/jVEJJtfPpf — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 29, 2018

First of all, Tatum gets a wide open three because Mitchell and Crowder don't communicate the switch. Again, I wonder if crowd noise played a factor here, as that's not the kind of mistake you see the Jazz frequently make. But because Tatum was so open, it was Gobert who had to come out and challenge the shot, and then they had no bigs to gather the rebound.

Mitchell, as the Jazz's most athletic rebounder, is probably the one who should have the best chance at making this play. Part of the problem is Crowder and Ingles are pretty poor defensive rebounders, and so they just don't have the players with the vertical leaping ability to make the play. Mitchell also shouldn't have fouled.

"I felt like if we could have secured a couple of defensive boards, that makes up for when you're struggling with on the offensive end if you're not making some shots," Snyder said.

The biggest defensive mistakes came on the final play, though:

Finally, the last play. Good design by Stevens, to get Ingles involved on the play, leaving Gobert out of the action in a confusing way. After that, just two guys close out the wrong guy and no one's there to defend Brown. pic.twitter.com/JsFa5fi9Gi — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 29, 2018

This is both good play design by Celtics coach Brad Stevens and pretty yakety-saxy defensive play from the Jazz. In the end, it's actually Rubio who screens Ingles off of Brown, finding him wide open.

But the Jazz also should have recognized the situation they were in and not sent two defensive players to rotate out to Semi Ojeleye, a 30 percent 3-point shooter. Brown was the much more dangerous player. Ingles probably should have stepped out of the way and let Gobert handle the drive, though that's much easier said than done.

The Jazz have been decent at closing out games this season, but they haven't been great. They're just 10-11 in games this year when it's a one-possession game with under two minutes left. Tonight, I thought small lapses in decision making hurt them.

3. Other various notes:

There's so much to talk about outside of the final 9-0 run, though, which made it a great, if stressful, game to watch. Here are some quick notes, cheating the Triple Team format:

• Two Quin Snyder rotational decisions made fans mad. First, Derrick Favors played just nine minutes in the second half, and not again after the 9:12 mark of the 4th quarter. You look at some of the rebounding chances and wonder about what would have happened if Favors was in there. On the other hand, who does Favors guard in the Boston lineup that closed the game? Tatum? Brown? I don't know if that's good for the Jazz defensively. Besides, that lineup with Crowder at the 4 has done well. Secondly, Dante Exum getting subbed out for Joe Ingles at the 4:48 mark. Exum played well, but I don't think Snyder trusted him to make the right decisions down the stretch, and Exum has struggled with fatigue in his comeback. Ingles wasn't much of a factor, though late. Rubio hadn't shot the ball well at all, but nearly had a triple-double, so I get why he was in the game. In the end, I think I would have done the same things, but this is the kind of stuff that Snyder has admitted keeps him up at night.
• The 3-point shooting variance killed the Jazz again: the Celtics shot 12-21 from downtown (57 percent), while the Jazz shot just 9-33 (27 percent). Teams that shoot as well as the Cs did on Wednesday night from three are 23-5 on the season. If the 3-point percentages had been at team averages, the Jazz would have won by 18 points. Ouch.
• The Celtics came out with a zone, and it's really the first time the Jazz have seen it for more than one or two possessions all season long. "We played more zone tonight than we have in years," Stevens said. It killed the Jazz's momentum in the third quarter because it just got them out of the offense. In the end, the main Jazz strategy to beat it was to set a backscreen for Ingles to shoot threes over the top, but he shot just 2-7 from downtown. Again, one more three would have made it a much different contest.
• Crowder was great in the third quarter, playing with hugely impactful energy and smarts. In one ten-second span, he forced a 5-second inbound violation and nailed a three. In another ten-second span, Crowder played some beautiful help defense to force a Monroe layup miss, then made a difficult strong finish on the other end.
• Mitchell struggled with his defensive matchup against Brown, and Brown just used his size and strength to get to the rim and force Mitchell to foul him. In the battle of the starting two-guards, Brown ended up with 21 points on 10 shots and Mitchell had 22 points on 20 shots.
• Rubio is so good at drawing fouls when he needs to. As soon as Utah got in the penalty in the third quarter, Rubio saw an opportunity to force a switch against Celtics young wing Abdel Nader, who he thought was likely to foul him. One quick dribble move, one quick reaction, and bam, Rubio is to the line for two easy points.

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