Utah Jazz comeback comes up short against the New Orleans Pelicans

The Utah Jazz have been one of the hottest teams in the league for several months now. With the best record in the league, things have been mostly good for the Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell led squad.

But not tonight. Despite a fantastic offensive effort from Bojan Bogdanovic, the Jazz didn’t have much going for them this evening on the road against the New Orleans Pelicans.

The first quarter was fairly typical for an NBA game with the back and forth you would expect on any given night. Oh other than a Rudy Gobert 20 foot jumper! The Jazz struggled to make shots a little bit out of the gate, which resulted in a 3 point deficit at the end of the first quarter. Nothing insurmountable here. Wow Bojan’s 3 is on tonight! He’s due for some good games after a rather poor February. I love watching him play when he gets it going.

A three point barrage from Utah flips this game around in a hurray to start the second. The Jazz scored on 5 straight possessions, including 3 threes (kind of 4 if you include the 3 free throws by Jordan Clarkson) and the Jazz zoom out to a 5 point lead. This team is ridiculous when they get like this. Very Warriors-esque. The Pelicans were able to answer and keep it close through the 2nd quarter. The thing that probably stood out the most in this quarter is the lack of defense by both teams. The Jazz put up 41 points but also gave up 33. Five point lead going in to halftime is nothing to complain about though.

Yikes. I don’t even know what to say about this quarter. This could not have gone much worse for Utah. The spotty defense from the 2nd turned absolutely terrible in the 3rd. I hate to say it but Derrick Favors is not Derrick Favors right now. The Jazz spent big money to ensure they had great backup center minutes behind Rudy Gobert and that is just not happening right now. I don’t know if the guy needs some nights off to get a little more healthy or what but it’s hurting. Either way the Jazz coughed up the lead and then just bombed the quarter away to the tune of a 99-88 defect to end the 3rd.

Oh wow. And it just gets worse from there. The Pelicans defense was making things hard but they kept getting buckets on the other end. This is no where near the best team in the league right now. With 4 minutes to go the Jazz were down 14 and it definitely felt over.

AND THEN THEY SHOWED UP! The Jazz stormed back and were down by just 1 point and got a stop! Wow what a comeback. Dang. Zion got a very skeptical over the back call and sank both free throws. Jazz down 3 with the ball and a solid 29.5 seconds left. Let’s see what Quin draws up here. He’s usually great at this.

Oh.... oh wow.... that was. um.... That was one of the worst out of timeout at the end of a game plays I’ve ever seen. Practically no off ball movement, very little action, just some worthless action on the wing and a desperation air ball by Conley.

What a terrible way to end the game. And I’m just ending the recap right there. Woof.