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Donovan Mitchell Celebrates (Reuters)
Utah was close tonight (Sunday through Monday) to record one of its glorious crashes lately, but luckily Darius Garland’s foul in the closing seconds allowed it to open its away game campaign with a fourth straight win, 108: 109 in Cleveland.
11 minutes to the end of the game in Ohio, it would have looked completely finished. The Jazz opened the fourth quarter with two threes, went up to an 82-97 lead and none of the thousands of Cleveland fans in the stands apparently believed his team could come back. But the actors did believe.
Sadi Osman and Ricky Rubio led a 0:15 run in two minutes and 22 seconds and suddenly the scoreboard showed a 97:97 tie. The next time the ball goes into Utah’s basket, Darius Garland has already turned the score around and raised the Cubs to 99: 100. But even the Jazz, who led throughout most of the game, did not intend to let that slip out of their hands.
Donovan Mitchell scored Utah’s next five points and raised to 102: 104, when the host became it was Mike Conley who gave the Jazz back the lead with a three, 106: 107. In the last two minutes it was Rudy Gober with a dunk on one side and a big block on the other, which left the team with the third balance in the West. Still, Cleveland came out on top last with a 109: 108 lag, but Garland missed, Movley took an offensive rebound but also missed and the visitors came out with the win.
Mitchell led the Jazz, who came up with a 7:16 balance, with 35 points on 57% from the field (but also 7 turnovers), Guber settled for 6 points but contributed 20 rebounds and 5 blocks to the winner. Garland led the loser with 31 points.
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