Utah Jazz: Westbrook, Thunder deal team third loss in four games

Things got ugly for the Utah Jazz and some of their fans on Monday courtesy of Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Story has been updated to reflect new information on the Westbrook incident; you can read our response to the situation HERE.

The Utah Jazz had a golden opportunity to kill several foul fowl with one stone on Monday night. If they could just beat the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Viv, they would erase the bad juju of their recent letdown in Memphis, avenge their double OT loss to OKC, avoid a sweep at the hands of their divisional foes and keep themselves within three games of a top-four seed in the Western Conference.

Really, it would have been a statement win for Donovan Mitchell and company. Instead, Russell Westbrook was the one that did the talking.

Westbrook scored 23 points, grabbed 11 boards and dished out eight dimes to lead the Thunder to a 98-89 win in Salt Lake City. The Jazz managed to battle back from a 17-point deficit late, making it a two-possession game with 4:15 left to play, but the OKC floor general immediately spearheaded a 9-1 run late to shut it down.

In doing so, he and his crew dropped the Jazz into eighth place in the West and completed the season series sweep, which feels like a dark omen should the teams find themselves paired during postseason play.

Along the way, Westbrook had some choice words for a fan he’d been jawing with throughout the contest. Of course, he and Jazz fans go way back — after last year’s first-round playoff series, he opined that fans in Utah “say a lot of disrespectful, vulgar things.”

Past incidents aside, evidence suggests that Westbrook was the recipient of some particularly rough — and potentially racist — verbiage in this instance, so much so that he responded by telling the fan in question “I’ll f*ck you up. You and your wife.”

Here’s tape of the verbal altercation, courtesy of the Deseret News’ Eric Woodyard —

We’ll have more on the Westbrook incident in another story here on The J-Notes, but the story on the court was a tough loss for the Jazz and a big win for OKC.

Of course, the former NBA MVP didn’t do it alone — Dennis Schroder was a Jazz killer once again, dropping a team-high 24 points off the bench and seemingly answering every Utah run with a back-breaking bucket.

Meanwhile, the only real highlights for the Jazz were a handful of Rudy Gobert throw-downs, an ankle-breaking, step-back trey from Mitchell and the offensive brilliance of Royce O’Neale, who hit five 3-point shots and scored 17 points on the night.

After a slow start to the season, O’Neale has steadily picked up his level of play throughout the campaign and has really come on of late. He looks to be playing with more confidence offensively, which could be a boon for the Jazz heading into postseason play. Frankly, they’ll take offense anywhere they can get it.

Dante Exum returned to the fray after an absence of more than two months and, for the most part, looked like a player who had missed extended time. He missed all five of his shot attempts, and had a couple of bad turnovers in the first half where he lost track of his spot on the floor and stepped out of bounds.

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That said, he seemed to settle in as the game progressed and had a handful of strong defensive possessions. As it happens, the Jazz outscored OKC by seven when he was on the floor, which I isn’t something I’d call a fluke. Even as he works his way back into shape on offense, he should be able to impact games with his D.

With the loss, the Jazz dropped to 37-29 on the year. They’ll have to win 13 of their final 16 games to reach the 50-win mark. It’ll be a tough number to reach, even with a soft slate of games to close out the regular season.

Next up will be the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night.