Stars Collide in SLC as Jazz Survive Sixers

November 6th, 2019 | by Ken Clayton

Embiid piled up an impressive line, but Gobert’s team came away victorious. (Melissa Majchrzak via espn.com)


At any given point in the season, a team is dealing with several storylines. How soon will Mike Conley become accustomed to the Jazz offense? How will Joel Embiid respond as he returns to the lineup after a short suspension? How many active players over 6-foot-8 do the Jazz have? Really, that’s all? Is it really possible to use a chokehold to calm someone?

When this era’s Jazz and Sixers meet, those storylines pale somewhat compared to the big ones. Star-on-star matchups often define games, and this game has two pairings that generate a lot of debate: Rudy Gobert and Joel Embiid are two of the league’s top centers, and Donovan Mitchell and Ben Simmons are talented young players who once competed head-to-head for an award you may have heard about.

The Mitchell-Simmons matchup never materialized after Simmons collided with Royce O’Neale in the paint and came up favoring a shoulder in the first quarter. He left the game to ice the injury, and later returned, before experiencing more pain and calling it a night.

In the game’s opening minutes, Utah’s starters were seemingly stymied by the Sixers’ size, but after falling behind 9-2, Mitchell responded with a one-man 8-0 run to go ahead. The rest of the half followed a similar pattern, with the Jazz falling behind by a few baskets, then coming from behind to close the gap or take a small lead before repeating the cycle.

In the final seven minutes of the half, the Jazz did it again, coming from six points behind to seemingly take a four-point lead to the locker room. A foul called at the buzzer altered the halftime score, as Embiid buried two free throws to reduce the margin to two points.

In the second half the Jazz expanded the lead to as many as 13 late in the third, only to relinquish most of it. The Sixers used a favorable matchups against the second unit to claw back into the game. Tobias Harris, who was rumored to share a mutual interest with the Jazz last offseason, scored 11 in the fourth quarter, and former Jazzman Raul Neto added 11 points and four assists.

The game came down to the a battle of mostly missed free throws in the final minutes, with Mitchell missing three freebies and Harris missing one for the Sixers. Harris’ miss set the stage for the game winning shot.

Decisive Moment

Mitchell brought the ball up the court following the missed free throw, and Bogdanović came to set the pick. When Bogey slipped the pick, Harris committed to Mitchell and Neto stayed home as well, leaving Bogdanović with a wide open three. Despite 1:38 left on the clock, these would be the Jazz’ final points.

The Jazz improved to 5-3, and maintained the perfect 4-0 home record.

Stat of the Game

  • 10: The number of minutes Ben Simmons played due to the shoulder injury. Unfortunately the Jazz didn’t get to face the Sixers at full-strength, but they’ll take the win either way.
  • 50-42: The Jazz won the rebounding battle against the league’s top rebounding team, flipping the script from the last two games, when a few rebounds might have resulted in a couple of wins. Every starter grabbed at least four boards, and Jeff Green added six in 19 backup minutes.
  • 14: The NBA’s Advanced Stats credit Gobert with another 14 screen assists, which led to 26 Jazz points.

Line of the Game

The lines of the game belong to the two stars going head-to-head, Gobert and Embiid.

If you look at counting stats, Embiid arguably won the individual matchup with 27 points (18 in the first half), 16 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocked shots. He also shot an impressive 16-for-18 from the free throw line, but only 5-for-16 from the field.

Gobert logged 14 points, 16 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals and 1 blocked shot. He fouled out with 51.3 seconds left, and left the arena happy with a win.

Mitchell also turned in a great line, scoring 24 points on 10-for-23 shooting, and adding 8 assists, 5 rebounds and a steal.

Highlight of the Game

Gobert was active tonight all over the court tonight, including the three assists and three steals mentioned in his line. Here he’s guarded in the corner, but finds a cutting Bogey for the dunk.

Social

The Athletic’s Tony Jones chimed in on what he considers Mike Conley’s best game in a Jazz uniform:

For what it’s worth, I agree, and in fact I thought Conley could have handled the ball even more during stretches of the game. Mitchell was obviously going to run the offense at times, especially with both Emmanuel Mudiay and Danté Exum unavailable, but he was clearly tired by the end of the game. Conley might have been able to reduce the load during some fraction of the plays they were both on the court, conserving Donovan’s energy to make some shots or free throws down the stretch.

Quick Notes

  • With Mudiay and Ed Davis both out, the bench is thinner. Nowhere is this more evident than in the minutes played with a frontcourt lineup of Tony Bradley, Jeff Green and Georges Niang. That trio logged individual Net Ratings of -26.9, -33.3 and -70.4, respectively.
  • In many of the games, I keep thinking that Bogdanović scored a “quiet” 26 or 29 or 17 points. Only tonight did I realize that he’s averaging a “quiet” 20.1 points in his first seven games. Let that sink in. The Utah Jazz have two 20-point scorers. He also spent significant time guarding Al Horford, helping pester him to a 3-for-14 shooting night.
  • Mitchell has now beaten every team in the NBA. The Jazz had lost both games against the Sixers in both 2017-18 and 2018-19.

Up Next

The Jazz stay in Salt Lake City for the next game (the first time in this young season), welcoming Giannis Antetokounmpo and the 6-2 Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night. The Jazz hope the joke is on the visitors, with Salt Lake’s Greek Festival having been celebrated in September, and Utah finding itself in the midst of the deer hunt season.

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