Utah Jazz collapse in the fourth, lose to the Warriors

The Utah Jazz were in control against a short-handed Golden State Warriors team, who were also on the second night of a back-to-back, for most of the night tonight. It looked like they were going to take care of business in the way we’ve started to expect from this year’s team, and then the Jazz went about as cold as a team can go in the 4th quarter.

In the first half the Jazz were rolling, especially All-Star hopeful Lauri Markkanen. He had 23 pts and 8 rebs by halftime, it looked like he was heading for a career night. Golden State kept losing him in a lot of actions and he got a bevy of uncontested looks from the three-point line, hitting 5/8 in the first half.

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In the third quarter, the Jazz played well, but could not close the door on the Warriors who just kept hanging around, never letting the lead get higher than 12. They were great at making little runs and hitting timely shots, they got great contributions from guys like Ty Jerome and Patrick Baldwin Jr. tonight. They even got a couple of very miraculous Draymond Green three-pointers to go down.

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In the fourth quarter, the Jazz went 4/25 from the field, shooting 1/12 from three. They lost the quarter by 11 points, only scoring 13 points in the final period. The Warriors played incredible defense down the stretch, slowing the Jazz offense to a crawl. Their most impressive possession involved them pulling in 3 offensive rebounds before scoring a bucket with about 8:00 minutes left in the game. The Chase Center crowd was also fantastic, willing the team back into the game.

In the final minute of the game the Jazz had their chance to take the lead with two consecutive trips to the foul line, but Olynyk and Clarkson shot 1/4 on those attempts and that was all she wrote. There is no doubt that the Jazz will wish they could take a mulligan on this fourth quarter, this was a winnable game that slipped away due to poor execution and ice-cold shooting.

There is also no doubt that the #TankNote movement will be happy with this one.

The Jazz will try to avoid a winless road trip as they travel to play the surprisingly fun Sacramento Kings on Friday night.