SALT LAKE CITY: In the first play of his long-awaited first All-Star Game, Mike Conley faced Chris Paul for the first tip of the second quarter.
He lost the jump.
“I wasn’t ready for the tip,” Conley said after that game. “I was told I was going out there and getting ready to protect someone and I’m looking back (and the bank said), ‘Mike, go jump.’ I wish I had won the tip.”
You can now consider a practice to be run by a much more important one.
With 1.9 seconds left for Utah’s 117-114 victory Friday in Memphis, Conley lined up against Ja Morant for a jump ball. The bet was simple: if he got it, he would win the Jazz. If they lose, the Grizzlies could have one last chance to tie the game.
Jazz clearly assumed it would be the last. So much so that there were no jazz players installed behind Conley. Turns out Conley still has some hops. The veteran striker stood up and won the tip against high-flying Morant, and Derrick Favors quickly hurried to get the rebound and get the win.
“Mike got it!” Said Jordan Clarkson.
“I’ve never seen Mike jump so high from Ohio state,” Donovan Mitchell added.
Rudy Gobert joked, “I’d normally tell him to come up as fast as I do, but I lost mine today, so I couldn’t give him any advice: he wouldn’t take me seriously.”
That final play officially thwarted a furious Grizzlies quarterback rally, which gave Utah the first round of a strange peculiarity between Memphis. The two teams will play each other three times in four games, with the second round coming to Vivint Arena on Saturday.
Before the game, the Jazz talked about the weird mid-season series with the Grizzlies. Gobert said he would be physical and Georges Niang warned that Memphis would not leave easily. There was nothing particularly remarkable about these quotes, just the usual phrases of cutting cookies on an opposing team.
Then the game passed.
The final seconds showed Kyle Anderson trying to open up to Rudy Gobert to get a fundamental rebound (and get a lot of body) and Morant trying to push the ball away from Conley, sending the Jazz’s pointer point to the ground during the process.
Physical? To check.
Never say die? Check and check.
“It’s a real challenge because you won’t be able to follow a single plan to defeat this team,” Niang said before the match. “The way we protect them tonight will be different from the way we will protect them tomorrow because the teams are smart.”
Memphis will better have a new game plan Saturday in the second round because what the Grizzlies were doing against Donovan Mitchell sure didn’t work out.
The Jazz All-Star guard totaled 35 points, six assists and five rebounds. He did so early, scoring 19 points in the first half, as the Jazz took the lead. And he did it late, getting the last 10 points from Utah to help hold the Memphis rally.
Speaking of this rally, the Jazz will also have some things to work on in the rematch.
Utah (33-11) led up to 21 points in the first quarter, similar to the team that outscored the rest of the league earlier this season. Mitchell continued it, Bojan Bogdanovic had found a rhythm as he entered the paint and Gobert finished it all out of the selection.
The Jazz, who are sitting at the top of the NBA standings for their 3-point ability, scored just six triples in the first half. Memphis made a great effort to get the ball deep, so Utah came in.
Gobert added 25 points in the 11 of 14 shot; all those shots were within five feet of the hoop.
“They stayed home with shooters, so it was hard to get those pitches,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said.
Gobert has improved as a passer this season and has found success in finding teammates on the corners as he rolls to the edge. Since the Grizzlies weren’t coming down to stop him, he just scored.
“When they do downhill coverage and keep the guys in the shooters, it’s usually a two-on-one every time,” Gobert said.
But after all that had gone well, a 13-5 run in Memphis in the final minutes of the game meant the Jazz had to sweat the final possession.
Dillon Brooks, who had scored three 3s in a row in the fourth quarter, attempted a 3-pointer that bounced off. Conley went to the ground to secure the rebound, but was tied on a jump ball with 1.9 seconds left.
Conley did not miss the jump this time.
“I think it’s a running bet in the locker room: we’re still waiting for it to sink,” Clarkson said. “So we should bet he won a jump ball too. He dresses Jordan: they just sign people who sink in and do things like that. I think Mike is the only one left on the ground, so I hope he gets an avenue soon and we will make money from it. “