Despite a strong performance by Donovan Mitchell, the Utah Jazz are narrowly beaten by the Miami Heat. The decision was made with the final siren.
It took an early break from Quin Snyder, but it was more the jazz that got their sleepiness out of their bones and signed up for the game. Thus, they were able to keep an early heat advantage at least small. Shooting star Donovan Mitchell (1/7 FG in the first quarter) didn’t have a rhythm yet.
The same thing happened in the second quarter: Miami moved up to 9 points thanks to clever lay-ups, at the end of which simple layers or dunks often jumped out. But again it was a guest break which caused the pendulum to swing. And now that Mitchell also hit his litters, the jazz team was only 47:49 behind for the break tea.
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After the change of sides Mitchell finally caught fire. He not only scored 9 quick jazz points in a row, but was also the guarantor that Utah took control of the third quarter, with a total of 13 points in the third quarter, including a difficult one-handed alley-oop. But the hosts remained calm and played down their boots without any excitement, so that the final section started with a 74:75.
After a jazz intermediate run in the crunchtime, things were very close there. 59 seconds before the end, Dragic from the free-throw line set the score at 99:100 from the heat’s point of view. Mitchell countered with a great layout, Olynyk met two freebies. On the other hand, Hood threw out so that the Heat had a chance to win. Coach Spoelstra painted a clever play in a time-out, at the end of which Josh Richardson played a layup. 5.1 seconds to the end, his team led with one point. The last attack of jazz was about Mitchell, but his desperate throw missed his target.
Nevertheless, he ended the evening with 27 points, Hood came from the bank coming to 17 points. Six players scored double-digit points for Heat, including Dragic (16), Tyler Johnson (16) and Hassan Whiteside (14,10 Rebounds), who had to follow the crunchtime from the bank again.