by Elmer Mejia | Game six of the Jazz and Nuggets series took place tonight and it was a great one. The Jazz looked to end the series while the Denver Nuggets wanted to force a game seven.
In the first quarter, the Jazz started off great. Mitchell was on fire, per usual. He scored eight quick points in just the first three minutes of the game. He looked like a man on a mission and looked to wrap the series up. Clarkson was great off the bench once again, taking advantage of the minutes presented to him. The Jazz were great behind the three-point line and were cruising to take a ten-point lead. Murray was valuable, once again, for the Nuggets scoring 11 points. He led all scorers, followed closely by Mitchell who finished the quarter with 10. The Jazz took the quarter 36-30.
The second quarter began and Denver continued trying to take the lead. Murray kept his scoring streak by helping the Nuggets tie up the game 39-39 with ten minutes to go. The quarter saw the Nuggets make a complete turnaround and took the lead off Utah’s hands. Jamal Murray was commanding the Nuggets offense and couldn’t be stopped. He was feeling it and was doing it all. It seemed like everything he shot went in without a question. The Jazz just didn’t do very well in this quarter. They got outscored 31-20 and trailed 61-56 at the end of the first half.
As the third quarter began, the Jazz looked to regain the lead. Mitchell was leading the offense for the Jazz. The Jazz didn’t have that spark they had in the first quarter. The offense wasn’t there except for Mitchell who had 25 points with 3:41 left in the quarter. He took over the Utah offense single-handedly. He got a rest with two minutes left on the quarter. Jokic and Grant were helping Murray with the Nuggets offense who didn’t want to let go of the lead. The Jazz trailed 88-79 at the end of the third quarter.
The fourth quarter was Mitchell vs. Murray once again. They put on a show as they traded shots. They were like the song “anything you can do I can do better”. This obviously wasn’t helping the Jazz as they needed some stops as they were trailing 104-94 with four minutes left. As the minutes passed by Utah was still trailing and they had no answer for Murray. He was playing out-of-this-world basketball. He hit a dagger three with 50 seconds left that drained the energy out of the Utah Jazz.
The Nuggets won on an incredible performance by Jamal Murray who ended with 50 points in 43 minutes. Mitchell ended with 44 but it wasn’t enough to take the Jazz to the next round. Mike Conley had 21 points and Gobert had a double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds.
The Nuggets won 119-107 to force game seven which will be on Tuesday at 6:30 PM on TNT. The Jazz have had two opportunities to close the series but just couldn’t. Game seven will definitely be a thriller game.
Featured image via NBA.com.
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