Donovan Mitchell Drops 24 Points as Jazz Fend off Nuggets' Furious Comeback
The Utah Jazz outlasted the Denver Nuggets on Thursday night, earning a 111-104 win at Pepsi Center in Denver.
Donovan Mitchell had a game-high 24 points for Utah.
With the shot clock winding down late in the fourth quarter, Mitchell hit a right-handed scoop layup to put the Jazz up 104-98. His heroics helped Utah avoid throwing away what was at one point an 18-point lead.
Kyle Korver chipped in with 22 points off the bench, his highest total since his trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers. Derrick Favors (15 points, 11 rebounds) and Joe Ingles (15 points, 10 assists) each posted double-doubles.
This is only the fifth time in 32 games the Nuggets have lost at home.
Three-point shooting was a big factor in the outcome. The Jazz made 16 three-pointers as a team, with six coming from Korver alone. The Nuggets, meanwhile, shot 7-of-25 from beyond the arc.
The defeat highlighted two big concerns for Denver.
Nikola Jokic finished with 16 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists, but his team was just plus-two with him on the floor in 32 minutes. As great as Jokic is on offense, he can be a clear liability on defense. On multiple occasions, the Jazz looked to exploit Jokic's lack of speed when he was farther away from the basket.
Isaiah Thomas is effectively in the same boat, with his nagging hip injuries clearly robbing some of the athleticism that made him so dangerous with the Boston Celtics. Thomas had four points and zero assists in 11 minutes and owned the worst plus-minus (minus-10) of any Nuggets player.
If Thomas can't consistently attack opponents off the dribble, then it removes one of the biggest parts of his game.
Denver needs a lot of things to break in its favor in order to dethrone the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference. Were the Nuggets to match up with the Warriors, it's hard to see how Jokic's defense, in particular, wouldn't be a fatal flaw.
With Thursday's win, the Jazz are now three games back of the Portland Trail Blazers for the fourth seed and 1.5 games behind the fifth-place Houston Rockets.
Utah beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of last year's playoffs, but this is a different Thunder team. Paul George is playing at an MVP-type level, and trading Carmelo Anthony was addition by subtraction for OKC.
If the Jazz can at least climb into fifth, they'd avoid a tricky postseason rematch with the Thunder.
March is shaping up to be a favorable month for Utah. Of the team's 15 games, 12 come against teams in a lottery position. While April rolls around, the Jazz might have climbed a spot or two in the West standings.
