Basket Ball / Sports

Trade grades: Jazz net huge haul for Rudy Gobert; Wolves must contend for title to justify paying steep price

The Utah Jazz are trading Rudy Gobert to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a six-player deal, according to Adrian Wojnarowski. Minnesota is sending Utah Malik Beasley, Patrick Beverley, Walker Kessler, Leandro Bolmaro, Jarred Vanderbilt and four first-round picks for the All-Star center. Those picks are unprotected first-rounders in 2023, 2025, and 2027, an unprotected swap in 2026 and a top-five protected pick in 2029.

Gobert is a three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year and is widely considered the league’s best rim protector. In Minnesota, he will link up with Karl-Anthony Towns, who is one of the NBA’s better offensive big men, to form one of the NBA’s best frontcourts.

Minnesota finished a surprising 13th in defense last season with an aggressive trapping scheme, but Gobert takes them to an entirely different level. The Wolves will have to change their style, but no Gobert defense has finished below 13th in the past seven seasons. Utah, meanwhile, officially ends one of the more successful runs in franchise history. The Jazz have been a consistent playoff team with Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, but after a first-round flameout against the Dallas Mavericks, it became clear that change was needed. With head coach Quin Snyder also out, the Jazz will enter the 2022-23 season with a completely different looking team.

Now the question is whether or not Mitchell will be the next Utah star out the door. Rumors have linked him to the New York Knicks for years, and the Miami Heat also appear to be on the prowl looking for star talent. If they could get four first-rounders for Gobert, they’d likely be able to fetch even more for the younger Mitchell, and moving him now would have the added benefit of positioning the Jazz to potentially land one of the top picks in the loaded 2023 NBA Draft. Headlining that class is another French center, Victor Wembanyama, who has been compared to Gobert defensively, but has a much more diverse game offensively.

For most of Utah’s time in the playoffs, Minnesota has been …

Basket Ball / Sports

Mitchell, Gobert lead Jazz over 76ers for 6th straight win

Donovan Mitchell scored 22 points, Rudy Gobert had 17 points and 21 rebounds and the Utah Jazz extended their winning streak to six games with a 118-96 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday night. Hassan Whiteside added 14 points and 10 rebounds for Utah.

Joel Embiid had 19 points and nine rebounds for the 76ers. Seth Curry scored 18 points and Tobias Harris 17 for Philadelphia, which had won four of five.

Both teams were playing the second night of a back-to-back, and it was the 76ers who looked tired after halftime.

“I think you go through the ebb and flow of the season, sometimes you just decide not to be tired,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “When you’re playing the right way, it makes it easier.”

The Jazz were coming off a 136-104 win over Minnesota on Wednesday night in which they made 25 3-pointers, two shy of their season high. “They’re playing free,” Philadelphia coach Doc Rivers said. “They get a lot of 3’s up, they stretch the floor. They’re a tough basketball team, especially offensively.”

But against the Sixers, the Jazz, who finished with 15 3-pointers, used their inside game to take control in the third quarter. Whiteside’s three-point play pushed their advantage to double-digits, and Rudy Gay’s finish from close range and a foul shot for another three-point play gave Utah its biggest lead to that point, 71-58 with 2:27 left in the third.

The Jazz kept it up in the fourth, taking firm command on Jordan Clarkson’s 3-pointer that put them up 99-81 with 7:21 left. Utah’s lead reached as many as 23 points in a dominating fourth quarter.

“I didn’t feel like we had a lot tonight,” Rivers said.Embiid was back on the court for the seventh straight contest after missing nine in a row due to COVID-19 protocols. He has looked more like himself of late, scoring 32 points and being active in Philadelphia’s 110-106 win at Charlotte on Wednesday, when the 76ers completed a two-game sweep of the host Hornets over …

Basket Ball / Sports

Jazz suffer first home loss, fall 111-100 to Pacers

Myles Turner stood up to Rudy Gobert and the Indiana Pacers knocked down the Utah Jazz.

Malcolm Brogdon scored a season-high 30 points and grabbed nine rebounds, leading the Pacers to a 111-100 victory on Thursday night that ended Utah’s unbeaten home start.

Turner, Gobert, Donovan Mitchell and Joe Ingles were ejected with 4:01 left. Turner shoved Gobert, planting his shoulder in his back after a missed layup. Gobert responded by bear hugging him and trying to wrestle Turner to the floor. The two players had to be separated near the basket across from the Pacers bench.

Turner blamed the scuffle on Gobert knocking him to the floor after the initial play.

“I had to stand up for myself in that situation,” Turner said. “I don’t think I did anything wrong. But that’s not for me to decide. We’ll talk to the league and see what happens from there.”

Brogdon had the eighth 30-point game of his career and T.J. McConnell added 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists off the bench for the Pacers. Turner had 13 points and nine rebounds.

The Pacers finished 2-2 on their road trip after their second road win of the season.

“We’ve got a resilient group,” Brogdon said. “We’ve got a group that’s maturing and a group that’s getting better and getting tougher. We’ve got to continue to build on this.”

Mitchell scored 26 points and Gobert added 19 points and 11 rebounds. Mitchell blamed the scuffle on built-up frustration over the referees allowing too much contact early in the game.

“That whole thing could have been avoided — just draw the line early, as opposed to letting it build up for the whole game,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell got off to a fast start and gave the Jazz an early boost. But after Bojan Bogdanovic drove for a layup to give Utah a 42-38 lead midway through the second quarter, the Pacers held the Jazz to just four baskets over the final 6 ½ minutes before halftime. Meanwhile, Indiana crashed the boards and …

Basket Ball / Sports

Mitchell Drops 45 points to over-come the Clippers

The Los Angeles Clippers earned the right to take on the top-seeded Utah Jazz by beating the Dallas Mavericks in a Game 7 on Sunday afternoon. While Kawhi Leonard and company are certainly riding the momentum from that win into this series, nothing will come easy against Donovan Mitchell and the Jazz as Utah was the Western Conference’s top seed for a reason. As we enter the fourth quarter, we have a game on our hands as the Clippers and Jazz are all tied up.

Both of these teams have something to prove. The Clippers were bounced in the second round a year ago after they fell well short of their championship expectations. The Jazz made an even earlier exit in the postseason, losing in the first round to the Denver Nuggets, who went on to beat the Clippers in the next round after coming back from a 3-1 hole. Both of these teams will be hungry to prove that last season’s early playoff exits were just a blip in the grand scheme of things, but at the end of the day only one team can advance.

Rudy

For more on the NBA playoffs, we’ve got you covered with an in-depth look at the Clippers-Jazz series, the round-by-round playoff schedule, a breakdown of our expert predictions for both the second round and the entire postseason. Follow below for all the real-time updates throughout Game 1 between Los Angeles and Utah.…