Lakers stun Jazz in Los Angeles

SALT LAKE CITY — In the third quarter, the Utah Jazz led the Los Angeles Lakers by 10 points.

This was the same Lakers team that was playing without LeBron James, Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma. So you might have thought that lead was safe. But you’d be wrong.

The Lakers did have Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. And it was Caldwell-Pope who made the difference Sunday at Staples Center.

The Laker forward scored 32 points to lead Los Angeles to a stunning 113-109 win over the Jazz.

The loss snapped the Jazz’s seven-game winning streak.

“Everybody is talking about 'We’ve won eight or nine in a row,' or whatever; that doesn't mean anything,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “We’ve tried to talk about playing well and getting better. Hopefully, we get better from something like this.”

The Jazz didn’t play well on Sunday.

They struggled to stay in front of the Lakers guards, the struggled to execute their offense and against a team full of players that had spent a lot of minutes in the G-League, they failed to take control. The Lakers had 16 offensive rebounds in the game.

“Guys weren't working hard enough to be precise,” Snyder said. “You aren’t going to have a lot of success when you are giving up boards.”

The urgency wasn’t there from the get-go. The Lakers scored 34 points in the first quarter as Los Angeles came out with something to prove. Or at least individual players did.

The Lakers current roster is full of regular G-League players or guys on one-year deals looking for a next contract — and those players were motivated. Los Angeles played hard — really hard.

Utah never was able to match that level of urgency. That allowed the Lakers to go on a 23-11 run in the fourth quarter to take the lead for good.

“They are not energy-related, they are focused-related,” Snyder said of his team’s problems Sunday.

Rudy Gobert had 21 points and 10 rebounds for the Jazz. Donovan Mitchell had 19 points on just 5-of-17 shooting. Utah was without Ricky Rubio, Derrick Favors, Kyle Korver and Raul Neto in the game.

But what did the loss mean for Utah’s playoff positioning?

When it comes to home-court advantage, the Jazz would need to win out and the Blazers to lose both their remaining games to the Lakers and Kings in order to reach the fourth seed.

So the odds are long, but Sunday’s loss actually opened up a favorable scenario for the Jazz.

With a win, the Jazz would have locked up the fifth-seed in the playoffs. But the fact that they didn’t might be a good thing.

Denver appeared to lose to Portland on purpose on Sunday to help the Blazers jump the Rockets into the third seed. Why? The Nuggets don’t want to play the Rockets in the second round.

Houston has one game remaining against Oklahoma City. If the Rockets win that game, they are the third seed, (and the Jazz would be the fifth). But if they lose and Portland wins out, Houston drops to four.

A win Sunday would have locked the Jazz into that matchup against the Rockets. A loss, though, kept some options open.

If OKC and Portland both win out and Utah drops its last two contests, the Jazz will finish sixth and will be playing the Blazers in the first round with a potential matchup with the Nuggets in the second round — avoiding both the Rockets and Warriors until the Western Conference Finals.

But losing on purpose isn’t really in the Jazz DNA.

“We just have to keep improving and win the rest of our games,” Georges Niang said.

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