Jazz Comeback Ends in Controversy and a Streak-Snapping Win

February 8th, 2020 | by Mark Russell Pereira

Bogdanovic led the Jazz in a wild game with a controversial finish. (Melissa Majchrzak via espn.com)

Rudy Gobert goaltended Damian Lillard’s game-tying layup attempt with 14 seconds remaining. The referees did not make the call. The Utah Jazz won.

That will be the overwhelmingly dominant storyline regarding Utah’s ESPN-televised 117-114 win Friday night at home. However, an entire professional basketball game was played! While the Jazz snapped their five-game losing streak in controversial fashion, the ride along the way was extremely bumpy. Similar to home losses vs. the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday and the Houston Rockets last week Monday, the Jazz found themselves facing a severely depleted opponent on the second night of a back-to-back, and played down to their energy level.

The difference in Friday night’s game is that Utah made just enough positive plays to eke out a win.

First Quarter

To start the game, Portland only had nine active players, and was forced to start their fifth-string (!) center, Caleb Swanigan. (Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins remain injured, Hassan Whiteside was a late injury scratch, and Skal Labissiere was traded to the Atlanta Hawks at the trade deadline.) Swanigan himself was only acquired three weeks ago from the Sacramento Kings (although Swanigan did spend his first 2.5 seasons with the Blazers). The Blazers had no size behind Swanigan, and any non-Swanigan minutes at center would need to involve the shaky, tweener forward trio of Mario Hezonja, Carmelo Anthony, and Wenyen Gabriel.

Portland proceeded to score 38 points in the opening frame anyway, and the collective dread was starting to set in for Utah fans. The Jazz showed a lack of urgency and effort. Three minutes in, Joe Ingles and Bojan Bogdanovic casually watched Swanigan dive and recover a loose ball sitting between them, and the team allowed Damian Lillard to find his preferred spots with minimal resistance. Lillard went 6-for-6 on field goals in the quarter, including 4-for-4 from beyond the arc. The defense on Lillard from beyond the arc wasn’t horrible:

But, overall, Utah was largely incapable of keeping in front of him, as evidenced by this Lillard drive that became Portland’s eighth straight made field goal: 

Then Portland’s thin bench got even thinner after a scary moment. Royce O’Neale undercut Anfernee Simons on a midrange jumper at the end of the quarter, and Simons subsequently hit his head on the hardwood. This, too, went uncalled by the officials. Simons would exit for the rest of the game with a likely concussion. The Blazers found themselves with only eight active players for the remaining 36 minutes.

And eight would soon become seven.

Second Quarter

Two minutes into the second quarter, Trevor Ariza—Portland’s newly-acquired starting small forward—loudly protested a non-call on his driving layup attempt in which Tony Bradley gave some slight body contact. JB DeRosa delivered Ariza a deserved technical, at which point Ariza took his anger up another notch and aggressively lunged and shouted at DeRosa. That earned Ariza an ejection:

The Blazers were down to seven players. Where have we seen this before?

The Jazz’s on-ball defense against Lillard began to worsen, via a combination of bad defensive footwork and/or dying on screens. Ingles was Lillard’s primary defender for the most part all evening, with Donovan Mitchell covering CJ McCollum and parking Mike Conley or Jordan Clarkson elsewhere. After Lillard hit a stepback three against solid Ingles defense, the Jazz began to trap Lillard, but ineffectively. Mitchell bizarrely just leaves McCollum wide open here, and the Jazz were lucky he missed a wide-open layup:

The same ineffective Lillard trap, combined with a horrible rebounding effort by Rudy Gobert & Co. led to a Hezonja putback moments later.

Note that this last play involves Portland rolling out a lineup of Carmelo Anthony at center, which they kept for the remaining three minutes of the half. Other than a simple pick-and-roll that gave Gobert an easy layup, the Jazz offense somehow could not take advantage of the Blazers’ deficiencies and didn’t score for the rest of the half. Accordingly, Portland went on a 14-2 run and the Jazz found themselves down 14 points at the break.

Third Quarter

When the game resumed, we learned that double technicals were assessed to Donovan Mitchell and Gary Trent, Jr. It seemed emblematic of the Jazz’s frustration that their star player was getting himself T’d up in a halftime argument with an opponent’s inexperienced bench player. That said, perhaps Donovan was trying to inject some toughness on his home court after a streak of listless energy:

 

The Jazz returned to playing straight-up defense on Lillard, forcing him into a 1-for-8 quarter on field goal attempts, including a nice block from behind by Ingles on a three-point attempt.

Meanwhile, Conley took advantage of tired defensive legs and consistently gave himself and others wide-open threes or uncontested layups. He scored nine points and provided three assists in the quarter. After a horrific O’Neale backcourt turnover led to a Trent dunk that gave Portland an 84-75 lead, the Jazz sparked a run by executing a nice play for a Jordan Clarkson pump fake and dunk:

Gobert’s typical break with two minutes left in the quarter led to a surprise: Juwan Morgan, and not Tony Bradley, checked into the game for Morgan’s first career non-garbage time minutes. He fouled McCollum twice in these two minutes, but frankly McCollum made excellent plays that could have easily drawn fouls against many solid defenders. On the other end, Morgan’s above-the-rim capabilities led to a near-alley oop dunk (which led to an easy offensive rebound for an Ingles three) and a volleyball putback. Against the Anthony-at-center lineup Portland was using, it was refreshing to see Quin Snyder try someone with a little more speed and strength than Bradley or Georges Niang for a couple minutes.

Excellent execution against a tired team had Utah back within one to start the fourth quarter.

Fourth quarter

The Juwan Morgan experiment didn’t last. Bradley started the final quarter, and provided a very Tony Bradley play as part of an 11-2 Utah run near the start of the quarter:

The run also involved very easy offense for Utah against dead legs, including a Clarkson blow-by layup and a Gobert putback off of a wide-open Mitchell miss from deep.

With four minutes left to play, Snyder replaced Conley with O’Neale, which was a curious decision when Conley had been one of the top, consistent offensive performers for the Jazz throughout the night. Bogdanovic and Mitchell stepped up consistently late, trading blows with Lillard and McCollum. Bogey finished a powerful layup with 52 seconds left, and, after a contested midrange Lillard floater, Mitchell created a wide open layup for himself in what proved to be the deciding basket.

Lillard’s potential game-tying layup attempt came next:

And Lillard was (rightfully) apoplectic, and was as demonstratively upset as we’ve ever seen:

It’s important to note that if the goaltending was called, Utah and Portland would have been tied at 116 points apiece, with 14 seconds left to play. Instead, after Bogdanovic made one of two free throws resulting from a Portland intentional foul, good Utah defense forced the ball into Swanigan’s hands for an errant game-tying three-pointer at the buzzer.

It’s easy to throw around phrases like “the bad call cost Portland the game,” but that’s probably taking it a half step too far. If the Jazz have possession in a tie game with 14 seconds left—which almost certainly would mean Utah would take the last shot in regulation—the odds still favor Utah to win the game.

Furthermore, Bogdanovic’s splitting of the ensuing free throws gifted Portland a second chance in the hands of the most lethal long-range bomber in the game, but they (read: Anthony) were flustered into letting the game rest on Swanigan’s shot.

However, those feel somewhat like technicalities from Portland’s justifiable feelings due to the non-call. On the other hand, perhaps it shouldn’t have come down to that play in the first place:

More Notable Reactions:

Lillard let his feelings be known on Twitter, and also reminded us he just signed a $196 million extension to handle any fines coming his way:

McCollum:

Gobert and Conley:

Up Next:

Utah travels to Texas on Sunday for a back-to-back against Houston and Dallas.

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