Jazz Edge Wizards For Fourth Straight Win

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The Utah Jazz pushed their winning streak to four games with a 128-124 victory over the Washington Wizards.

With the win, the Jazz have also won nine of their last 10 while making a serious late-season push for homecourt advantage in the playoffs.

The Jazz already have a spot in the postseason clinched up, but rather than mail it in, they put together a strong performance against Washington, who they had soundly beaten 116-95 on March 18. The Jazz now currently have a six game winning streak against Washington.

Early on, the Jazz put together one of their best first quarter of the year by putting up 39 points in the opening period. The period was capped off by a buzzer-beating basket by Joe Ingles.

Bit By The Injury Bug

In the middle of the game, the Jazz experienced a slew of injuries. Some players were able to return to the floor but others did not.

Donovan Mitchell briefly left the game on after getting poked in the eye, but returned a few minutes later.

Raul Neto also left the game with a cut on his lip and concussion-type symptoms after taking a hard hit in the second quarter.

Derrick Favors had back spasms and also went to the locker room for the remainder of the game.

With several key players out, the Jazz head coach Quin Snyder admitted that the rotation was thrown into a bit of disarray.

“Those are the situations that I think as a team you need to adjust to,” said Snyder. “The game’s always going to provide you with challenges and how you react to them. I thought tonight…there were some situations that were good for us to experience.”

Wizards Make A Game Of It

The Wizards roared back in the third quarter by outscoring the Jazz 28-22, including a buzzer-beater of their own by Jordan McRae. The triple right at the horn cut the Jazz lead to just two after it had been as large as 15.

Utah came out firing to start the fourth quarter and built the led back up to nine on a 3-pointer by Jae Crowder with eight minutes to go. The Wizards, to their credit kept battling and tied the game up at 110-all. The teams traded baskets until Bradley Beal’s dunk with three minutes left gave Washington a brief lead at 116-114.

The Wizards’ advantage didn’t last as Rudy Gobert converted an and-one to give Utah the lead again. A subsequent triple by Ricky Rubio gave the Jazz some more breathing room as they held on to win.

In the victory, five Jazzmen finished in double-figure scoring. Mitchell turned in a gem with 35 points while Gobert picked up a double-double with 13 points and 17 rebounds.

Ingles was also stellar with 18 points and 10 assists to complete his second-straight double-double.

Beal, who was a game-time decision to play, turned in 34 points.

The Jazz now sit at a record of 46-30 and remain in fifth place in the Western Conference playoff race.