Donovan Mitchell scored 26 points, Bojan Bogdanovic netted 19 and Rudy Gobert finished with 16 points, 12 rebounds and three blocked shots as the Utah Jazz defeated the Miami Heat 112-94 Saturday night in Salt Lake City for their seventh victory in a row.
Mitchell scored eight points in a decisive third quarter as Utah turned a five-point halftime lead into a 21-point advantage. The Jazz outscored the Heat 31-15 in that period.
Kendrick Nunn topped Miami with 23 points, while Jimmy Butler and Max Strus each had 15 points as the Heat had their four-game winning streak snapped on the second stop of their seven-game Western Conference swing.
Gobert hit 6-of-7 shots, but Mitchell struggled from beyond the arc, going 3-for-12, but made 6 of 9 from two-point range.
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Utah picked up its 18th win in 19 games and improved to 12-2 at home despite only hitting 12 of 46 treys and shooting 45.9 percent overall. The Jazz’s defense played a key role, limiting Miami to 40.7 percent shooting.
Bogdanovic added six rebounds, Georges Niang chipped in with 14 points and five assists, and Jordan Clarkson contributed 11 points for the NBA-leading Jazz.
Miami controlled the first quarter and had a 36-31 lead after a 3-pointer by Strus in the second quarter when the Jazz turned it on.
A night after four Jazz players scored at least 25 points in a win over Milwaukee, Utah again got contributions from several sources.
Niang began a game-changing 14-0 run with a 3-pointer. Five other Jazz players scored in that surge, including Bogdanovic, Royce O’Neale, Clarkson, Joe Ingles and Gobert.
Ingles scored only eight points and added six assists after his 27-point game on Friday night, but his sixth and final assist of the game put him in a tie with Pete Maravich for seventh on the Jazz’s all-time assists list with 1,844.
–Field Level Media