Utah Jazz roll to another win, topping Charlotte Hornets at home

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz were bracing themselves for an energized Charlotte Hornets team on Monday night at Vivint Arena.

The Hornets, after all, are fighting for their playoff lives and were coming off a 47-point loss to the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night, leaving Jazz players to think that Charlotte was going to be extra motivated.

Instead, the Hornets looked like a team that was playing its third road game in four nights, and a shorthanded Utah squad took advantage.

The Jazz seized control in the second quarter, led by as many as 20 in the third and ultimately won by nine, 111-102, after a Charlotte rally in the fourth that was much too little too late.

On the night, the home team shot 48 percent from the field and assisted on 30 of 38 baskets, while the Hornets hit just 40 percent of their shots, and that was after they got hot late. Charlotte hit just one of its first 21 3-point attempts before catching fire in the fourth quarter and finishing 7-of-30 from distance.

Donovan Mitchell led Utah with 25 points, and added five assists, four steals and three rebounds. Kemba Walker lit up the scoreboard for 47 points, although 22 of those came in the last five minutes as Charlotte tried to rally back from a 15-point deficit.

"I think we had a great game defensively beside the last few minutes when Kemba went off again, but beside that, great defensive game," said Utah center Rudy Gobert.

The victory marked Utah's fifth in a row and 10th in its last 11 games. The Jazz enter Tuesday fifth in the Western Conference, a half-game up on the LA Clippers and two games behind the Portland Trail Blazers, with five games to go in the regular season.

The Hornets are now three games behind the eighth-place Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference with five to go.

"As long as we continue defending and making the game easy on us on the offensive end, it's one thing to keep running back in transition, but it's different when you're making shots and they've got to play against our half-court defense," Mitchell said.

Without Derrick Favors (back spasms) and Kyle Korver (right knee soreness), the Jazz did not play well in the final few minutes of the first quarter and the first few minutes of the second. Trailing 29-28, Jazz head coach Quin Snyder put Gobert and Mitchell back in for Ekpe Udoh and Raul Neto, and Utah was off to the races.

The Jazz outscored the Hornets 24-10 over the final 9:46 before halftime to take a 52-39 lead into the locker room.

Utah then used a 10-0 run in the third quarter to double a 10-point lead to 20.

"I came back in the game trying to have an impact on both ends," Gobert said. "We did a great job playing the way we were playing, keep moving the ball and keep getting stops. We got up 20 points. Beside the last two minutes, great game for us. Great win."

The Jazz had 16 assists at halftime and added 14 more in the second stanza.

"That's pretty impressive," Ricky Rubio said when told of the final assist tally, of which he had a team-high 13. "We moved the ball real well tonight, and we got baskets."

Up next for Utah is a Wednesday night game on the road against the Phoenix Suns, a team it has beaten three times since early February.

"We've got to keep one game at a time and just continue to focus on ourselves," Mitchell said.

from Deseret News https://ift.tt/2I6ci7I