Joe Ingles saves the day as Jazz beat Pistons in overtime

Quin Snyder talks about the OT win, the inbounds play to force overtime pic.twitter.com/H933mnBkaR

— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) January 25, 2018

Detroit • On the inbounds play with 4.5 seconds left and down two points, who gets the ball?

The Utah Jazz were thinking Donovan Mitchell. The play was supposed to free up the rookie scorer near the 3-point line to potentially win the game. But as things went, Ricky Rubio couldn’t help but change the plan.

“Joe was so open,” he said. “I had to go for the tie.”

Maybe it was his unassuming figure that allowed him to slip past Andre Drummond for the game-tying layup Wednesday night at Little Caesars Arena, sending the Jazz to overtime. But as many opponents have learned in the past four season, Ingles is lethal with the ball in his hands.

He saved his best points for last in a 98-95 Jazz win, notching the tying bucket near the end of regulation, then hitting a pair of 3-pointers in overtime to push them past the Pistons. And through a combination of gritty defense and timely offense, Utah (20-28) survived an onslaught in the paint from Drummond, who finished with 30 points and 24 rebounds.

Ingles didn’t speak to reporters after the game, but teammates were more than willing to speak for him.

“Joe Ingles [is] big time now,” Derrick Favors quipped. “That’s what he got paid all that money for — to hit the big shots.”

The 30-year-old forward was 5-for-10 shooting on a night where Utah’s offense was bogged down below 40 percent overall. Mitchell found himself tied up by defensive specialist Avery Bradley, finishing 6 of 21 from the field. Despite a relatively solid defensive performance, Rudy Gobert and Favors struggled on offense and the Jazz were outscored by 20 in the paint.

Still, they hung in — even after Drummond (freshly raw from an All Star snub) went on a one-man rampage for seven unanswered points to flip a one-point Jazz lead to an 85-79 home lead. After a Tobias Harris 3-pointer, the Jazz trailed by nine points, the Pistons’ biggest lead of the night.

But then came a sudden rally: Joe Johnson scored two baskets and helped bring Utah within a point. After Drummond hit one free throw at the line, the Jazz were given the ball down two with 11.2 seconds left. An initial drive by Mitchell looked promising, until Drummond flew out of thin air to block the layup attempt. With 4.5 seconds left, the Jazz had one more chance.

“It was a heck of a pass,” Snyder said of Rubio’s assist — one of five he had in the game. “Joe made a heck of a cut.”

Ingles started out overtime where he left off, hitting back-to-back 3-pointers to give the Jazz a 95-91 lead. The clinching basket was scored by Mitchell, who hit his only 3-pointer of the night with three minutes left in overtime.

It wouldn’t have seemed like much of a lead had the Jazz been playing the lackadaisical defense of their previous three games. But aside from Drummond, the rest of the Pistons shot only 33.8 percent against the Jazz defense. In overtime, Drummond (six points) was the only Piston who scored.

It was none other than Gobert who had to contest two key 3-point attempts: By Luke Kennard at the end of regulation, and then by Tobias Harris with two seconds left in overtime. Like Ingles’ layup, Gobert contesting the shots was more improvisation than according to design.

“Just trying to get the win,” he said of those late plays. “Joe [Ingles] and Donovan got screened, so I had to take a shot.”

The Jazz improved to 2-0 in overtime games, and won their sixth game on the road this season. The team wraps up the three-game road trip Friday against the Toronto Raptors.

from The Salt Lake Tribune http://ift.tt/2DGSWnX