The Utah Jazz were able to grind it out on the road to defeat the Memphis Grizzlies 95-78 for their 10th straight road win.
The Utah Jazz entered Friday’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies on a nine-game road win streak in hopes of extending that during their playoff race surge. What many thought would be an easy win ended up being a tough battle throughout the first quarter and a half.
Then Donovan Mitchell and the Jazz starters came back into the game around the halfway point of the second quarter and went on a 14-0 run, and never looked back.
There were some things that the Jazz did really well tonight and other things that were not so good. So let’s get the bad stuff out of the way, then finish on a high note.
The Bad
The Jazz were plagued by turnovers once again, which has seemed to be a recurring event lately for them. Careless mistakes kept the Grizzlies in the game during the first half. Luckily, the Jazz were able to buckle down in the second half and never let the Grizzlies get back into the game.
Overall the Jazz committed 17 turnovers. Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors accounted for 12 of those turnovers.
Donovan Mitchell was also noticeably off tonight. He made just four of his 15 shots, while also posting five turnovers. However, he did have a net rating of plus-15 on the night and was able to contribute outside of scoring through his passing and defense.
The Good
Jae Crowder was feeling it tonight as he scored a season-high 22 points while shooting 6-of-11 from three and posting a net rating of plus-22.
As you can see in the clip below, Jae Crowder found a lot of success by setting up for corner threes when the defense collapsed in the paint.
They also just helped a lot, repeatedly, off of Jae Crowder in the corner, and then he hit the open 3s. pic.twitter.com/6yj7incygi
— Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 10, 2018
Overall the Jazz shot the three-ball well at a clip of 40.6 percent as a team. Joe Ingles had a nice game as he knocked down four threes and shot 60 percent overall from the field.
The Jazz were also dominant on the glass as they hauled in 48 rebounds as a team, compared to 39 rebounds by the Grizzlies.
Play of the Game
My favorite play of the game and probably the most exciting play in this snoozefest of a game was this breakaway dunk by Donovan Mitchell. Add this to his ridiculous library of awesome dunks.
Donovan's breakaway dunk is our @AFCU Instant Rewind of the night ⏮ https://t.co/tq6eMUyAbn
— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) March 10, 2018
Stat of the Game
26 total team assists. The ball movement by the Jazz has been fantastic over the last couple of games. In the last game against the Indiana Pacers, the Jazz had 30 total team assists. When the ball is moving this well for the Jazz, they’re hard to stop.
Player of the Game
Jae Crowder is my player of the game. Crowder chipped in 33 minutes tonight, and as I highlighted earlier, scored 22 points while draining six of his 11 three-point attempts.
Tonight’s win is significant for two reasons:
- Jazz remain tied with the Denver Nuggets for the 8th seed in the playoffs (result of tonight’s LA Clippers game pending).
- 10 straight road wins sets record for second most in franchise history.
Next: Utah Jazz: Jae Crowder making it easy to not miss Rodney Hood
Up next
The Jazz will finish their four-game road trip against the banged-up New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday. Anthony Davis sprained his ankle the other night against the Sacramento Kings and it’s not yet known whether or not he will be playing against the Jazz in the contest.