Donovan Mitchell’s tomahawk slam had so much power that it could have burst the NBA bubble.
Nuggets coach Michael Malone stood with stone face, arms crossed and barely turned his head to look. No one on the court – not even Nikola Jokic, who threw the careless cover – even falsified an attempt to hunt down.
Even with 13 minutes left in the game, Mitchell’s demolition in the third quarter was the moment the Jazz took a 2-1 lead. The dunk put an embarrassing exclamation point on Denver’s 30-point deficit, and the Nuggets still had a fourth quarter to play.
The Jazz throttled the Nuggets in Game 3, 124-87 on Friday, leaving no doubt as to who was the favorite to win this first-round playoff series. Had it not been for Denver’s resounding victory in Game 1, they would have looked to be in a 3-0 series deficit.
Mitchell’s mammoth dunk may have sealed it unofficially, but according to Malone, the game was probably an hour earlier.
“We lost this game at the end of the first quarter, beginning of the second quarter,” Malone said.
It was then, after Rudy Gobert’s already strong start to Friday’s game, that he continued to distinguish Jokic from within. After a smattering of layouts, dunks, finger rolls and hook shots, which were only barely fought, Gobert was already on 12 points and seven rebounds at the end of the first quarter. The Jazz closed out a 12-4 run to open a double-edged lead.
An impartial observer could ask her if the Nuggets themselves wanted to be on the court, suggesting their long faces and suspicious body language otherwise.
Less than two minutes later, Utah had already rained three 3-pointers, two of which came from Game 3 addition Mike Conley. He had missed the first two games before the birth of his son, and made up for his shortcomings in short order.
Conley’s third 3-pointer of the game gave the Jazz a 34-16 lead just moments into the second quarter. At that point, Malone had seen enough.
“It was a wrap,” he said. “That was, all after that, the second half and the last eight minutes of the second quarter, was just window dressing.”
Malone said before the game that he felt there were times in Game 2 that the Nuggets played with the urgency of an affair in the regular season. If that was the case, then Denver’s effort for most of the first half Friday was that of a glorious scrimmage.
Game 1 hero Jamal Murray was re-neutralized by Jazz wing Royce O’Neale. Murray’s energy is often what feeds the team, and O’Neale’s stubborn defense has only tarnished Murray’s influence. His 12 points and six assists, as in Game 2, were well below the production levels Denver needed from him.
“That we just have to look in the mirror and be ready to play, because they’re currently playing out of their minds, just really shooting the ball,” Murray said. “They play with a lot of confidence, so it’s time for us to get ourselves back.”
Jokic finished with 15 points and six assists, while his Utah opponent, Gobert, put his will in the paint. Gobert had 24 points and 14 rebounds, his rim-rattling dunks setting the tone of the opening game.
“To be honest, I think I just missed shots,” Jokic said. ‘I mean, I took all the shots I wanted. I mean the shots I took, I will sleep really well. ”
Similarly, Conley, who dropped six of Utah’s 18 3-pointers and broke open the win that served as the basis for the outbreak of Game 2.
Malone projected an easy attitude between games 2 and 3, illustrative of a coach who pointed out his team’s failings and was sure to see if they would get a foot in the door. That was certainly not the case, because the Jazz, again, proved that the Denver defense offers the resistance of a summer wind.
“I would like to believe that I am a defensive minded coach, even if you would not tell me by how we are playing at the moment,” Malone said Thursday.
