SALT LAKE CITY — Embattled Julius Randle was rolling. Mitchell Robinson was slamming. And the Knicks had been profitable by 12 after a 24-2 romp late within the third quarter.
However as in Los Angeles, the Knicks blew one other double-digit lead and suffered a 113-104 defeat to the highly effective Jazz on Monday at Vivint Area.
Terrible offensively within the fourth quarter, the Knicks fell to a season-worst 24-30 and 0-2 on the make-or-break western journey with the commerce deadline looming.
“It’s powerful. 0-2 to start out the journey,” stated Randle, who scored 30 factors. “We might simply be 2-0, however we’re competing in opposition to groups who're making an attempt to make the playoffs and compete for championships.”
The Knicks mustered simply 16 factors within the fourth earlier than two meaningless buckets within the closing 40 seconds. The Knicks gained video games like this final season with steely fourth quarters and now lose them.
“Each staff is completely different,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau stated. “We performed nicely for 3 quarters. You bought a smaller margin for error on the highway. The fourth quarter is completely different — the depth of it. Our turnovers put them in open flooring and so they bought straightforward buckets. There’s a small completely different between profitable and shedding. Proper now we’re falling brief and bought to enhance.”
The Jazz, lacking heart Rudy Gobert and out-for-the-season Joe Ingles, moved to 33-21 as Donovan Mitchell killed his hometown staff with 32 factors.
Randle racked up a team-high in factors, and appeared to be in All-Star type for 3 quarters. Robinson went for 19 factors and 21 rebounds. However Randle bought quiet late and Robinson didn’t come up large enough ultimately, shedding a defensive rebound to Mitchell, who fed it to burly Udoka Azubuike for a pivotal slam dunk.
“Successful performs,’’ Mitchell stated.
Robinson proceeded to overlook two key free throws with 3:01 left and the Knicks had no firepower down the stretch.
The killer got here when Evan Fournier capped a poor outing by bouncing the ball off his foot and Bojan Bogdanovich raced in for a fast-break dunk to make it 102-97 with underneath two minutes left.
“These previous two losses are good and unhealthy,” RJ Barrett stated. “The nice factor we’re taking part in extraordinarily nicely for a lot of the sport and taking it to those groups and have them again on their heels. That’s the constructive half. As soon as we get to that time, don’t give them any life.”
A Randle to Barrett quick break lifted the result in 82-70 with 3:14 left within the third capping that 24-2 run. Randle rolled a bounce cross to Barrett, who missed a layup however Randle adopted with the tap-in with 3:14 left within the third.
However the Jazz closed the quarter nicely and had been inside 86-82 after three, buoyed by a third-chance tip-in by Jordan Clarkson. It could or might not have been a coincidence that Cam Reddish had checked into the competition simply after the 24-2 run and the Knicks noticed their lead disintegrate.
Whereas backup level guard Immanuel Quickley turned a practice wreck early within the fourth quarter, Mike Conley Jr. drained a 3-pointer to get the Jazz inside 86-85 with 10:15 left and so they zoomed forward for good.
With the Knicks shorthanded, the hardly ever used Reddish performed quarter-hour, scoring six factors, taking pictures 1 of 4 from the sphere however was a minus-21.
The Knicks had been lacking start line guard Kemba Walker, who was taking a relaxation day on the primary evening of a back-to-back. And so they had been additionally minus rookie taking pictures guard Quentin Grimes (sore knee).
That allowed Alec Burks to slip in because the starter at level guard and moved little-used Reddish right into a offered a part of the backup unit.
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