New Orleans played one of its best quarters of the season in the first 12 minutes Thursday, but given the way Utah is performing right now, it wasn’t nearly enough to secure a victory. The Jazz roared back from a slow start on their home court, beating the Pelicans for a second time in three days and upping their league-best winning streak to seven games.
The visitors deposited their most points in a quarter (43) all season to go up by a dozen points, but Utah still managed to grab a narrow halftime lead. The Jazz led relatively comfortably for much of the second half.
IT WAS OVER WHEN…
One of two Bogdanovic shooters – they’re not related – who has burned the Pelicans’ defense in recent seasons, Utah’s Bojan Bogdanovic nailed a three-pointer to give the Jazz a 122-106 advantage with five-plus minutes remaining. New Orleans dropped to 1-4 on its lengthy Western Conference road trip, which concludes Saturday at Minnesota.
PELICANS PLAYER OF THE GAME
Zion Williamson continues to show an uncanny knack for scoring in the paint and over taller defenders, this time doing a ton of damage against 7-foot-1 Rudy Gobert, a past Defensive Player of the Year. Williamson has been historically efficient over the past week, regularly putting up big numbers without needing a lot of attempts from the field to do so. This time he scored 27 points on 14 shots.
BY THE NUMBERS
69-49: Utah advantage in the middle quarters, turning a 12-point deficit into an eight-point lead.
50.6: Utah shooting percentage from the field, including 43.6 on three-pointers. The Jazz were 24/25 on free throws as well.
2: Via ESPN Stats & Info research, career NBA ejections for Stan Van Gundy, who was tossed in the second half after disputing a call in which Utah’s Donovan Mitchell saved the ball along the baseline off a nearby Pelicans player.
Revisiting three keys to victory
DEFENSIVE DISCIPLINE
The point totals spoke for themselves. Utah had 70 points at halftime, 100 through three through quarters and already registered the most points by a New Orleans opponent this season with plenty of possessions left in the fourth period.
GET BACK TO BOARD DOMINANCE
Facing Utah in consecutive games proved to be a net negative for one of the NBA’s best rebounding squads, but New Orleans won the category by two Thursday, after losing by 16 boards Tuesday.
THIRD SCORER STEPPING UP
There were stretches in which another player joined Williamson and Brandon Ingram in leading the offense, but it wasn’t sustained. Lonzo Ball tallied 12 points through three quarters and at times looked confident in his jumper, while Nickeil Alexander-Walker provided some attacks in the second half and got to the foul line as a result.
