Watching the flight of the basketball, Donovan Mitchell knew Alec Burks’ jump shot was going to hit the rim and bounce long.
So the Utah Jazz rookie ran toward the basket. His rookie counterpart Lonzo Ball forgot to block out, when the ball hit the rim and offered Mitchell the perfect bounce he rose in the air, and dunked the rebound ferociously with one hand.
“I was hyped up and relaxed at the same time,” Mitchell said.
“Put this loss on me,” Ball said.
Before a Saturday night sellout crowd at Vivint Smart Home Arena, the Jazz defeated the Lakers 96-81 for their third win of the season. Mitchell’s putback dunk goes down as one play in the game, but it was the play that ignited the Jazz and helped them to their first victory in a week.
Mitchell followed the dunk with a 3-pointer on the next possession. On the next possession after that, he forced a turnover by drawing an offensive foul. Before those three plays, the Jazz were struggling, having seen a 15-point trimmed to 70-64. The arena was quiet and the Lakers had seized momentum.
The dunk and the 3 allowed the Jazz to retake a 75-64 advantage, awakened the building, and Utah was able to cruise from there.
“I think those plays propelled us into getting the win,” Jazz guard Rodney Hood said. “That dunk was amazing. We knew he was that athletic, because we had seen it in practice. But he was able to do it when we needed it. He had been struggling, and sometimes you just need one play to get you going.”
Mitchell finished with a career-high 22 points, 15 coming in the second half when the game was on the line. He shot 9 of 16 from the field and made three of his six looks from 3-point range.
That performance led a Jazz team which received standout games from multiple sources. Point guard Ricky Rubio scored 21 points and added seven rebounds and four assists. Derrick Favors recorded 14 points and 10 rebounds for his first double-double of the season. Joe Ingles was his usual all-around self, scoring 13 points while grabbing five rebounds, handing out four assists and nabbing three steals.
“I thought we were gritty,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “The offense was coming easy at certain points. I like that we shot 31 threes. I thought we made some really good plays and made good decisions in the first quarter. I thought we competed.”
The Jazz didn’t play perfectly. They still turned the ball over way too much (21 times), shot one free-throw in the second half and scored 40 points in the second half after scoring 56 in the first half.
But they held the Lakers to 36 second half points, a season-low. They allowed one Los Angeles starter to score in double-figures, Brandon Ingram with 16 points. And they led the Lakers wire-to-wire, despite some wobbly moments on both ends.
It was enough to break a two-game losing streak, including a bad defeat at the hands of the Phoenix Suns. Most importantly, the Jazz played with an overall energy they didn’t have against the Suns or the Los Angeles Clippers. As a result, the Jazz defeated the Lakers for the ninth time in their past 10 tries, including five straight.
“It was a little better tonight, but we still have a lot of improvement,” Rubio said. “We did some good things, but right now we’ve got to get better.”