“One of those nights” plagues Jazz in loss to Mavs

Just two nights removed from setting the NBA team record for most points in a half with 18, the Utah Jazz struggle to find their stroke against the Dallas Mavericks in a 103-111 loss.

There’s some nasty, poetic justice in their somewhere.

The Jazz shot 12-44 from the arc Monday night (27%) and such a figure isn’t even indicative of just how tough it was to hit the 3 against the Mavs. Outside of Conley, who went 6-10, Utah shot 17.6%.

On the flip side, Dallas had no trouble finding their range. They went 23-49 from distance (47%), with 5 players splashing home 3 or more triples.

With the Mavs hitting 11 more triples than Utah, that makes the 36th game this season a team has exceeded their opponent in 3PM by 11+. Teams are now 34-2 in such games.

Not only is that a super rare 3PM advantage for Dallas, a loss was written in stone well before the final minutes when there was “still a chance”.

Facing such a script, Mitchell put it well in his postgame presser:

Donovan, though not down on the team, is likely a bit down on himself after 16 points on 23 shots, most of which, you guessed it, took place in the 2nd half when Utah was down a handful of possessions.

40% Royce O’Neale also struggled, going 0-8 from deep. On the other side, however, 34% shooter Dorian Finney-Smith went 5-12 and 32% shooter Josh Richardson went 5-5.

It was just one of those nights. In the immortal words of former Jazzman Ricky Rubio, “Never too high, never too low.”

There were some fun moments throughout the game, like Rudy Gobert’s block on Luka Doncic (ignore the jersey hold):

Here are are the net four factors for Monday’s game:

eFG% advantage: -9.2%
TOV% advantage: -0.5%
OREB% advantage: -1.8%
FT Rate advantage: +6.4%

Let’s summarize some other noteworthy aspects of the contest:

• Rudy Gobert was fantastic, as usual, with a 14-15-2-2 stat line.
• The Jazz starters were all a small positive, while the bench was a severe negative: Niang -10, Clarkson -14, Favors -11, and Ingles -17.
• Despite 31 points from Doncic, Gobert bothered him severely in the paint, where Luka converted just 5 of his 15 attempts.
• The contest became aggressive and chippy at various moments, resulting in anti-climactic confrontations and a handful of technicals.

MVP: Mike Conley

“Mountain Mike” was seemingly the only Jazz offensive player pushing the team up the hill. He came out on fire and carried the Jazz for much of the night offensively.

Conley finished the night with 28 points on 13 FGAs. He also chipped in 3 rebounds, 7 assists, and 1 steal.

He was a key part of the Jazz staying in the game for as long as they did. Of all players who logged any playing time for either team, Mike Conley had the highest “Win Probability Added” at +16% per Inpredictable.

Check out a summary of Mike’s highlights from the game: