Utah Jazz keep it rolling against the Miami Heat with 7th straight win

The Utah Jazz came in to tonight’s game on an absolute fire. They brought the heat yet again tonight and took down last year’s Eastern Conference Champions the Miami Heat, defeating them for their 7th straight win. That’s 18 wins in 17 games for those counting at home. Let’s revisit some thoughts, highlights, and comments from the game.

The game started off very slow for the Jazz. This is the first time in a while that it felt like an opposing defense was actually generating stops against the high-powered offense. The switches weren't creating open shots or mismatches and the Jazz had just 2 points in the first 5 or so minutes. It got a little worse before it got better, but Bojan Bogdanovic had seen enough and forced a Miami timeout with the game at 13-8. The three ball just wasn’t dropping in the 1st, shooting 1-12 in the quarter. That meant a 21-18 deficit after one. Consider how bad they played, that could have been much worse.

The second quarter was your typical back and forth between 2 good teams. Bogdanovic was showing his offensive versatility this quarter. He can score at all levels and in many different ways. He’s much more than just a spot up sniper. Side note: I really wish Royce O’Neale would learn how to not travel on his pump fake and drive from the 3 point line.

This was definitely a matchup of 2 high-ranked defenses. Neither team really found an offensive rhythm and it was a relatively low-scoring affair thus far. The Jazz took a 47-42 lead into the half.

Donovan came out swinging in the 2nd half. A very quick 7-0 run by himself made Miami call a timeout just a minute and a half into the 2nd half. Jazz jumped out to a 12 point lead with that burst and it felt like they would control it the rest of the way. Goodness! Make that a 16-0 Jazz run to start the 2nd half. Quin Snyder is a mastermind. The Heat were well prepared to get the Jazz off their game. But sure enough, by halftime the Jazz have countered and their offense is clicking anyways.

This was a really close game and all of a sudden the Jazz are up 21. The Jazz defense is Championship level good. They just smothered the Heat in this 3rd quarter.

The game was essentially decided before the 4th quarter even started. The 4th was basically just a formality at this point. The Jazz maintained their lead and kept this train rolling.

Choo choo!