Summary:  Great defensive effort gets Kawhi’d in the 4^th quarter as Jazz can’t match the Clippers 4^th quarter burst.

• The Jazz played a brilliant defensive game for 3 quarters tonight. However, in the 4^th quarter the 2x finals MVP Kawhi Leonard was too much for the Jazz.  Leonard who was 1 for 9 in the first half.   Didn’t really hit is stride in the 3^rd  Then when it was game time he took over scoring 18 points.

• The Cippers offense was the #1 halfcourt offense in the NBA coming into the game and tonight they scored just .78 pts per 100 possessions in the halfcourt. This is in the 12^th percentile of performances this year.

• The Jazz didn’t defensive rebound the misses in the 4^th At one point the Clippers had 6 offensive rebound on 8 potential chances.  The quarter ended with the Clippers getting 6 offensive rebounds in 10 chances.  Kawhi went 6 for 11 and it felt like the Clippers got all of his misses.  The Clippers were crashing with 3 guys and the Jazz couldn’t take advantage because they didn’t get the rebounds to be able to run out on the Clippers overcommitting to the offensive glass.  This is a bit surprising because Doc Rivers is traditionally a non offensive rebound coach.    For the game the Clippers got 39% of all their misses as offensive rebounds.

• The refrain is that we miss Favors in this circumstance, but that doesn’t make sense. Favors didn’t close games last year for the Jazz.   The next would be we miss Jae Crowder.  Jae Crowder is one of the lowest rebounding percentage players for his position.  Thabo had a higher defensive rebounding rate for his career than Jae.    Coming into the game the Jazz were the 3^rd best defensive rebounding team in the NBA but this is two games in a row where the Jazz had a hard time on the glass and it is going to be a game plan they have to answer.

• Donovan Mitchell was awesome in the 4^th He had 17 points on 4 of 6 shooting and made 8 of 10 free throws.  Donovan finished the game with 36 points on 21 shots attempts.  He hit 11 of 21 from the field and 4 of 6 from three.  He is over 50% for the season and 40% from three.   He also added 4 rebounds and 6 assists.

• Bojan Bogdanovic had another huge first quarter. He marked 7 points on 3 of 7 shooting and was able to get to the rim with a variety of moves.

• The Clippers won a game where they shot 7 of 32 from three. Talking to Jerry West before the game (yeah I just typed that, I had to) he commented that the Clippers just aren’t hitting shots yet.  Pat Beverly was 0 for 5 and has struggled all year.  Landry Shamet was 2 for 8 and Kawhi was 2 for 8.

• The Jazz offense struggled again during the middle of the game. They went 14 minutes and scored only 12 points from the first quarter to the 2^nd.

• The Jazz closed the first half with the O lineup – With Co, Do, Bo, Jo and Go. They came in with the Jazz trailing 36-30 and by halftime it was Jazz 41-39.

• The Jazz had the game down to 1 with 2:28 left when JaMychl Green hit a three and that sparked the Clippers on a 14 to 4 run to close the game.

• Mike Conley had his 6^th poor shooting night in 7 games, shooting 2 for 10. Tonight he had 1 assist and 5 turnovers.

• Jeff Green was -26 in 19 minutes.

• Tony Bradley got rotation minutes tonight and had 8 points and 5 rebounds. However, the Jazz were -14 when h was on the floor.

• Royce O’Neale got his first offensive rebound of the season

• Jazz shot distribution was better tonight with 36% of shots at the rim and 36% of shots as threes

• Jazz didn’t get out and run at all in the this game. Only 7% of their possessions were in transition.

• The Clippers are really good and straight scary with Paul George. They could run away with the West.