Utah Jazz: 3 takeaways from Game 6 vs. Thunder

Here’s a look back at how the Utah Jazz were able to win Game 6 and beat the Oklahoma City Thunder to advance to the Western Conference semifinals.

Friday night’s contest against the Oklahoma City Thunder marked the Utah Jazz‘s second attempt to close out the series, except this time it was on their home court. Fortunately for the Jazz, they were able to do so. There is definitely time to look ahead to their matchup against the Houston Rockets, but first – Game 6.

Game 6 didn’t start out great for the Jazz in more ways than one. Poor shooting had them down early, and to make matters worse, Ricky Rubio appeared to tweak something, as evidenced by the immediate limp in his step after the play. Rubio came off the court, and headed straight back to the locker room.

Very quickly afterwards the Jazz updated Rubio’s status, ruling him out for the remainder of the game. This led to players that haven’t gotten much run in the series to er, get some run — namely Alec Burks and Jonas Jerebko — and it helped the Jazz weather the Thunder storm.

Russell Westbrook didn’t have another monster third quarter, but he did have another strong showing; as he would finish with 46 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. Steven Adams had nine points before halftime, but he would pick up his third foul with just over a minute before the break. Despite the foul trouble, he would finish with a double-double with 19 points and 15 rebounds.

Playoff P chose the wrong time to not play up to his nickname, as he would finish with a measly five points on a ghastly 2-of-16 shooting.

The Thunder’s supporting cast disappeared, but the Jazz’s wasn’t much better, statistically speaking, even though the bench outscored the Thunder bench by nine. Sometimes in the NBA, even in the playoffs, the sum of the parts are greater than the whole.

It may seem like a copout to be saying the Jazz team as a whole was the reason they stayed in the game, but it’s the truth — it really was a collective team effort.

When Adams picked up his third foul before halftime, it nicely coincided with Joe Ingles starting to heat up, and Rudy Gobert – well, see for yourself:

That emphatic jam would prove to be the catalyst for the Jazz, and they would tie the game at 41 apiece. The second half? Well, that’s a different story.

Mitchell would come out and draw first (or is it second half?) blood, scoring Utah’s first 10 points by himself, highlighting a 38-point night at the office and a historic feat to boot:

This brings us to our first takeaway of the night.