Utah Jazz-Pesky T-Wolves react: Gobert leads the band to big win

In what was a contentious game, Rudy Gobert and the Utah Jazz captured a big victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

If the Utah Jazz are to make a legit postseason push over the final month and change of the 2017-18 NBA season, they’re going to have to fight for it. During Friday night’s bout with the Minnesota Timberwolves, that’s exactly what happened — quite literally.

In a game that featured multiple ejections, a bad flagrant foul and a shoving match in front of the Wolves’ bench, the Jazz escaped with a big 116-108 win over the pesky T-Wolves to keep pace in the playoff race.

The Jazz band was led in their sweet rhythm by Rudy Gobert, who scored a season-high 26 points. In doing so, he hit on 7-of-9 shot attempts from the floor and a scorching 12-of-14 from the line. Clearly, Hack-a-Rudy has become a thing of the past. He’s now at 69.1 percent from the charity stripe for the season; less than a percentage point from his stated goal of 70 percent.

It’s games like this where the full scope of his impact is apparent. At this point, Gobert is a well-known deterrent in the paint. Even if the chaos his presence creates for opposing offensive schemes isn’t always something that translates to the basic box score.

But when he makes himself an offensive weapon — which happens much more often than a lot of people will give him credit for —  his status as a top 10 or 15 player in the league becomes pretty hard to deny.

Having said that, the defensive end is where his bread is buttered. Gobert also grabbed 16 boards, blocked four shots and added a steal for good measure. The Wolves may have put up points, but Gobert and Co. made the defensive plays they needed to get the W.

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All told, this felt like a statement game for the Stifle Tower. Karl-Anthony Towns may have gotten ejected early (and isn’t a spectacular defender anyway), but Utah’s All-NBA guy was having his way with the Wolves’ frontcourt before the shenanigans started.

Speaking of which…

Round Three, FIGHT!

The first two Jazz-Wolves games were pretty tame in comparison to what went down on Friday. After the KAT ejection and during crunch time in the contest, Minnesota point-man Jeff Teague took it upon himself to do this to Ricky Rubio —

The flagrant two call here was a no-brainer; what’s confusing is that Teague took it to that level knowing what’s at stake.

The Wolves are currently in a four-way battle for the No. 3 spot in the West and are only four games ahead of the Jazz at No. 10. In other words, wins are important, and with Towns ejected and Jimmy Butler out injured, they needed Teague in a big, bad way.

To that point in the game, Teague had been having his way with the Jazz D. He finished the night with 25 points on 9-of-15 shooting. The T-Wolves’ late run notwithstanding, they could’ve used his presence over the game’s final five minutes.

Not a good look for Teague.

Meanwhile, mum was the word from Rubio on the icident post-game, but he did shout out Jae Crowder for being a first-responder. “He’s going to be a great teammate for me, forever…”

Nobody’s looking for the kind of thing Teague did, but having some fight in you is important. To that end, Crowder and the rest of the Jazz earned high marks for this performance.

Mitchell strikes again

It felt like a quiet night for Jazz rookie sensation Donovan Mitchell, particularly through the first three quarters. But he still managed to rack-up 26 points of his own to tie Gobert for the team lead. Along the way, he hit 10-of-18 shots.

His play down the stretch was key in securing the win.