Utah Jazz-San Antonio Spurs react: Aldridge and Mitchell duel in OT thriller

Despite some late-game heroics from Donovan Mitchell, the Utah Jazz fell to the San Antonio Spurs in an overtime thriller and lost ground in the playoff race.

The Utah Jazz suffered a heartbreaking loss in San Antonio on Friday night and in more ways than one. By falling to the Spurs 124-120 in overtime, Utah moved closer to dropping out of the top eight in the Western Conference. Not only that — the team saw its 12-game road win streak come to an end as well.

Nevertheless, the fans got a treat with rookie Donovan Mitchell and LaMarcus Aldridge putting on a show in the OT thriller.

All I can say is what a game, folks. Despite the result, it has got to be a Game of the Year candidate. The Jazz were close all night long, but simply couldn’t get over the hump in the end.

Aldridge was on fire from the start, finishing with a career-high 45 points on a very efficient 19-of-28 shooting. Utah threw multiple different defenders on him, but it didn’t matter. Aldridge was sinking shots left and right, and put on a show. Even when he was checked by Defensive Player of the Year candidate Rudy Gobert.

Meanwhile, Mitchell carried the Jazz late in the game and finished with 35 points on 14-of-35 shooting. He got into a zone and came up big with some clutch buckets down the stretch.

Things got particularly interesting in the fourth quarter when Mitchell sank three incredible 3-pointers, including the one that sent the game into OT —

Unquestionably, the Jazz had an opportunity to steal this game. They fought hard on a back-to-back and left it all out on the court. There were some questionable calls late in the game that really hurt the Jazz, but at the end of the day, you just have to move on and focus on the next game.

Elsewhere in the Association, the Denver Nuggets picked up an impressive win in Washington. That coupled with the Jazz loss brought the Nuggets to within just one game out of that No. 8 seed.

With just nine games left in the regular season, the Jazz are clinging to that last playoff spot with little margin for error.

Both teams have pretty difficult schedules remaining, so I expect this to be a wild finish that could come down to the very last game. The Jazz have been on a role recently, and can’t get down after two tough losses recently.

Next: Donovan Mitchell docu-series set to drop

They played hard against the Spurs and have shown all season that they can compete with anybody. Now, it’s on to the next one.