The Utah Jazz came into Staples Center to face the Los Angeles Lakers. Though each team was undermanned, one was used to it – the other, not so much. Los Angeles has been without Lebron James for the past 4 weeks. They have also been without Anthony Davis for about 8 weeks. However, Utah lost Donovan Mitchell yesterday while hosting Indiana. This will be the first of many games without their star shooting guard. According to reports, he is expected to miss a week after MRI shows he suffered a low-ankle sprain.
Both Los Angeles and Utah came out equally hot. Just 2 minutes into the first quarter, the game was tied at 6. From there, it was tied a couple more times. Caldwell-pope hit a corner three to put Los Angeles ahead. However, Utah started to break away. By the halfway point, they hit back-to-back buckets from deep which opened a 5-point advantage. Soon, that would be cut short. At the end of the first, Utah led 35-34.
It did not look much different in the second quarter. The game was still neck-and-neck. Each team was trading buckets. When one scored, the other answered right away. In the last minute of the half, Los Angeles continued to let the three-pointers fly. Dennis Schroder and Caldwell-Pope both knocked down consecutive threes. Overall, the team was 13-of-26 from behind the arc. At the break, Los Angeles was up 65-62.
At the start of the third quarter, it was a completely different ball game. Los Angeles came out on a 14-7 run. They took a 10-point lead at the 5:03 mark. That would be their largest lead of the game. Prior to then, neither team had led by more than 5. Ultimately, turnovers were hurting Utah. The team had 8 turnovers in the third and only 4 in the first half. Thus, Los Angeles led by 12 headed into the fourth. It was a 94-82 game going into the final stretch.
During the fourth quarter, Los Angeles’ defense became stagnant. They got too comfortable with the lead and allowed Utah to go on a 12-0 run. Just under the midway point in the quarter, it was down to a 1-point game which forced Los Angeles to call timeout. Royce O’Neale put Utah in front with a three with about 3 ½ to play. Nonetheless, Schroder knocked in a shot from downtown as well to give Los Angeles the lead back with a minute left. He was not done yet though. Schroder sent the game to overtime with 3.5 seconds left in regulation. His layup tied it all up at 110.
Los Angeles led by as much as 7 in the opening minutes of overtime. Eventually, their lead blew to 12 with about 35 seconds left. Their defense kept forcing Utah to take shots from behind the arc. As a result, they just could not get any good looks at the rim. In the end, Los Angeles would walk out with a 127-115 victory.
Andre Drummond and Schroder led their team with 25 points apiece. Caldwell-Pope had 23 points. On the other hand, Jordan Clarkson led Utah with 27 points. Ersan Ilyasova had 20 points. Joe Ingles finished with a double-double having 20 points as well, and 14 assists on top of that.
Schroder attributes his aggressiveness from having previous experience going against Ilyasova.
“I played against Ilyasova in Atlanta, so I wanted to attack him a little bit,” he said. “Coach seen it, so he told me to come off screens and attack him and that’s what we had to do,” He continued. “I think it worked out pretty well because we got the win.”
Up Next:
Los Angeles will host Utah again on Monday, March 19th at 10:00pm.
