This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Utah Jazz were reeling, courtesy of a 3-pointer by Luol Deng with eight minutes left that gave the Los Angeles Lakers a four-point lead. The offense was on life support, and a sold-out crowd of 19,911 at Vivint Smart Home Arena pleaded for energy from the home team.
This couldn't happen, could it? Could a Lakers team pegged for the bottom of the Western Conference come in and beat the Jazz? An 0-2 start for Utah seemed possible at that moment.
But needing a jolt of leadership and execution in the worst way, Utah scored the next 11 points and never surrendered the lead from there, salvaging a harder-than-expected 96-89 win in its home opener against Los Angeles.
"The games you are expected to win, these are the hardest games," Utah shooting guard Rodney Hood said. "I think it just came down to us being able to get a couple of key stops. We were able to get to the free-throw line, we started hitting shots. Once they started to miss, we were good after that."
The Lakers being able to take a 76-72 lead was shocking, because the Jazz held a 61-50 lead in the third quarter and seemed to be cruising.
The Jazz shot 41 percent from the field overall, and their 6 of 25 performance from 3-point range started with them missing 19 of their first 22 from beyond the arc. But Utah's defense was so smothering that it hardly seemed to matter. The Jazz were able to get out to a big lead, and they had opportunities to put the game away, which they could did not accomplish until the waning moments.
"I think the thing that was impressive was that we had that 11 point lead, and to go from having the chance to break the game open to actually being down in the game, it showed a lot of grit to come back from that," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. "I thought we were persistent tonight in how we played, and I think we got better defensively as the game went on."
George Hill saved the Jazz on Friday night, scoring a game-high 23 points, and holding Lakers guard D'Angelo Russell to 3 of 14 shooting from the field for nine points. Whenever the Jazz needed a big play, a big bucket, a big anything, Hill was there to provide it. He shot 7 of 14 from the field and 7 of 9 from the free-throw line. He grabbed three rebounds and handed out three assists.
Friday was also the return of Derrick Favors, who was big off the bench, scoring 15 points, grabbing nine rebounds and blocking two shots in 20 minutes. Those two were enough offensively to make up for Hood having a subpar 5 of 14 shooting night, although he scored 15.
The Jazz also received a second consecutive double-double from Rudy Gobert, who came up with 13 points and 13 rebounds to go along with four blocked shots.
Los Angeles was led by Lou Williams, who had 17 points. Nick Young had 13, while Deng had 12 and 12 rebounds.
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Storylines
R The Jazz hold the Lakers to 38 percent shooting from the field.
• Utah score 31 points in the fourth quarter, eventually pulling away after the Lakers were within five points most of the second half.
• The Jazz outrebound the Lakers 47-43.