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Tim BontempsESPN
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Donovan Mitchell scored a career-high 57 points for the Utah Jazz, but it was his 8-second offense with 1:46 in the fourth quarter that helped the Denver Nuggets escape Game 1 of the first-round playoffs. series with a 135-125 victory on Monday.
“It’s hard to lose the first game … but there are a lot of things we can control,” Mitchell said afterward. “I laid a bit on myself for the 8-second offense, and then they came down and hit a 3, and that really changed the whole game, that sequence right here.”
The Jazz had the ball and a four-point lead with 1:54 left as Mitchell slowly began to run the ball upcourt – including yelling at Joe Ingles to lead him to another part of the court.
What Mitchell could not realize at the moment was that the shot clock started at 22 seconds, instead of 24, following the initiative of defensive rebound that Rudy Gobert took after blocking Nikola Jokic’s shot from Gobert and got out of bounds.
It was only when Mitchell looked up and realized that the clock was just over 16 seconds that he was trying to heave across the half court – only for veteran official Scott Foster, who was standing right on the midcourt strip , to blow his whistle directly, point to the center circle and signal that it is Nuggets ball.
Mitchell’s abuse was only exacerbated by the fact that it was immediately followed by a Jamal Murray 3 pointer that cut Utah’s lead from four to one – beginning a full stretch of Murray that lasted through the rest of the game and cost Utah a chance to open the series with a desperate need for victory.
“That’s my fault as a leader and as a point guard at the moment,” Mitchell said. “That’s terrible on my part.
“I posted that kind of thing … there’s really no one to turn it on. I just took my time to run it, and I need to be more aware. I think this was a crucial part of the game. “At the end of the day, I will not put it all on that one play, but that was a crucial part.”
The 8-second offense was a rare but costly mistake in what was a brilliant performance by Mitchell – one the Jazz desperately needed with point guard Mike Conley leaving the team to return to Ohio for the birth of his children. Mitchell scored 28 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, making one virtuoso game after another.
Mitchell’s 57 points were the third most in NBA playoff history, surpassing only Michael Jordan’s 63 points against the Boston Celtics in 1986 and Elgin Baylor’s 61 points against the Celtics in 1962.
“Not good,” said Jokic, who had 29 points, 10 rebounds and three assists in 42 minutes for the Nuggets. “It’s not good for us. Donovan is a great player. We know he will be aggressive. He is a really good scorer.
“When we know there will be a game like this, I’m just glad we found a way to make good plays and the right plays at the end and we won the game.”
To put all the blame on the 8-second offense, however, Murray’s ridiculousness would be ignored close to the game, as Denver Utah outscored 30-16 over the final 1:46 of regulation and the five-minute period – with Murray , who scored 18 points and had two assists in that stretch, which shook Utah by itself.
“It was good conversation, good conversations there on the floor,” said Murray, who finished in 40 minutes with 36 points and nine assists. “That’s what made it so fun. We chat when we go to timeouts, I save him and he hits step-backs on me and he waits for me and I hit step-backs on him.
“I smile, because those are the games you want to be in, those are games that are the most fun and competitive. As a man who takes it with that kind of passion, that’s the fights, that’s the competitive spirit you want to bring to games. It will be a good series. “
However, the Jazz will be kicking themselves after letting this game go – especially with Conley still guaranteed to forget at least Game 2, if not longer, because he’s holding on to his newborn.
However, Mitchell tried to stay positive after the loss, saying that everything Denver had done – despite the oddity playing these postseason games in an arena with no fans on a neutral side – was held to the court’s advantage as the team with higher seeding.
“Of course it’s a tough one to lose like this in overtime,” Mitchell said, “but there will be many more, and I think guys, including myself, are ready.
“We’ve done a lot of things well. We just need to get back to the drawing board and be ready.”
ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk contributed to this report.
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