Donovan Mitchell briefly rolls his eyes then closes them. At his side, Mike Conley grimaces. The latter, served by the first, has just missed a shot in the corner to bring the Jazz back to possession of the Suns, ten seconds from the end. Both men understood that the best team in the league was going to win at home. After being 17 points behind at the start of the last quarter…
Jazz becomes an expert in the matter. This is their sixth loss this season despite a lead of at least ten points in the final period.
« I don’t think there’s some kind of voodoo curse going around “, Judge Quin Snyder, or “ that there is a spell that condemns us to let go of an advance “. Rather than a potential psychological obstacle to overcome “, the Jazz coach believes that it is “ more of a question of execution, concentration and being able to move from one action to another “. However, agreeing: Maybe there is a slight anxiety. »
3/20 to finish the game
We must undoubtedly see the tension in the Jazz who presented themselves at the start of this fourth quarter having dominated their subject in the previous minutes. But the locals lacked everything to finish the game. From the address of Donovan Mitchell or Bojan Bogdanovic who nevertheless inherited some clean shots.
Rhythm and lucidity in attack against a defense that did them no favors on placed play. We think of this choice of Jordan Clarkson, six minutes from the end, who strangely refused the shot in transition to eat the clock a little, before starting to dribble and make a pass… directly into the hands of Chris Paul, who had only to begin the counter-attack.
Efforts too, to counter JaVale McGee, for example, who deflected a few offensive rebounds at the start of the quarter. The Suns and their conductor, Chris Paul, displayed their usual serenity to overturn the match by sticking a 36-13 to the Jazz to finish, with a 14/21 on shots, against 3/20 for their opponents…
Another traffic problem…
« We gotta play free, we’re all too tensejudge Donovan Mitchell, author of a 0/6 in the last moments. Maybe it’s a mental thing, maybe. […] We play while being tense. You can sit here and say ‘Oh, it’s something mental’, maybe it is, it’s probably what comes out on the floor. But if we are in there, we have already lost the match. »
For his part, Rudy Gobert also thinks that Jazz has ” a bit too much reflected in the final quarter. Like his coach, the pivot believes that his team has suddenly lost its rhythm in attack. ” The ball was not circulating not like in the third quarter. Once again, we stopped playing like we did earlier in the game. I feel like that’s what happens pretty much every time », notices the pivot.
Despite this setback, their coach also wants to take positives from this match. ” We did a lot of good things to get into the position we were in. And when we got to the crucial moment, we stopped doing those things. I believe in this team. We must correct certain elements in which we must progress. This team has always been able to do that. No one overlooks their mistakes. »
