In the first half of Tuesday, Austin Rivers, the killer from Utah, was not stopped. Officer Knicks, who fell previously, dropped 25 points in his career in 12 minutes of the opening half and made the first 10 shots – five of them with 3 points.
And the Knicks beat the Jazz, as they did earlier this month, when Rivers scored the final 14 points of the game.
But the magic stopped for Doc Rivers’ son. Rivers started on a drive, taking the third foul with 4:30 left in the first half. Knicks’s coach, Tom Thibodeau, decided to shoot Rivers and destroyed his perfect game.
The night was never the same. Rivers did not return until 4:11, remained in the third quarter and lost his strongest hand.
The Jazz gathered from 15 points down with a tough defense and the dominance of Rudy Gobert to take revenge on the Knicks, 108-94, at Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City.
Rivers finished with the 25, while the Knicks (8-11) finished the trip with four games to the west at 1-3. Rivers missed all four of his shots in the second half, while the Jazz rose from 3, and the Knicks gave up the last three games of the trip after scoring the opening against Golden State.
“They did a good job in the second half [on Rivers], which we knew they would do in terms of catching him and taking the ball out of his hands, “Thibodeau said.” And then it becomes important for us to attack the flash correctly. ”
Asked if he thought of keeping Rivers with three mistakes, given that he is on the path to history, Thibodeau said: “I only felt that stretch, as it goes offensively, I thought we would do what What have I done. But it occurred to me to leave him there. ”
Rivers said Thibodeau was “understandable” to the snatch.
“He certainly wasn’t the coach,” he said.
Instead, it is possible that the fatigue of the team will be brought by Rivers before the game. Utah started the fourth quarter in an 11-0 run to end it.
“Maybe the boys are dead,” Rivers said afterward. “Looking across the floor with five minutes left, it didn’t look like we were the unit.”
The Knicks still led by 13 to the second half. Jazz was triggered by Mike Conley in the third quarter – he scored 17 points out of 19 points in the second half – and Gobert was superb with 19 points and 18 rebounds.
The Jazz beat the Knicks for 17 offensive rebounds with Knicks center Mitchell Robinson, not even the strength he needed to be against one of the NBA’s elite centers.
Robinson played 31 minutes, but after the game sent a tweet, then deleted: “One day, they will let me play.”
Knicks’s players now seemed to think the job was done and acted more defensively, just waiting for the ref to blow the final whistle. Robinson had only seven points on four tries and committed only two fouls.
Rivers, meanwhile, was followed when he returned late in the third.
“The second half was different – every pick-and-roll was lightning fast,” Rivers said. “It simply came to our notice then. I’m not going to force the photos to pick up my numbers. Maybe I should have looked back at him. “
Rivers said the young Knicks is unprepared for the Utah attack in the second half.
“I knew they would come out,” Rivers said.
„The initial part of [our] the defense was pretty good, “Thibodeau said.” But when we gave them a second, third crack, it’s hard to beat a team like that on the road. That was probably the biggest disappointment. “
It was a strange day for Rivers, who spoke to the media after the morning filming and touched on two topics – Kobe Bryant’s guidance on his death anniversary and the club’s “tiredness”.
The Knicks played 13 of the top 19 on the road.
“Oh, we’re definitely tired,” Rivers said Tuesday morning. “Our program, I would challenge anyone to organize their program compared to ours. I don’t know how a program could be tougher than what we played. ”
Rivers came into the game with difficulty, having scored just seven points in the last four games.
As the game progressed, Rivers looked like Bryant in the first half. Then, the whole team looked in the last two quarters, Jazz won the ninth game in a row to go 13-4.
“It helped me in times of doubt and times of failure,” Rivers said of Bryant. “He used to come to me and talk to me about all my games, especially at the beginning [in New Orleans] when I was young and I was fighting ”.
Rivers ‘at least 25-point performance surpassed the Knicks’ 24-point high in 1993. Rivers just missed hitting a Knicks record of 11 of 11 shots to start a game.
In the third quarter, Rivers’ contested shots jumped off the rim on the 11th try, failing to set the team record shared by Johnny Newman, Bernard King and Robinson.
The rivers had no help. Debutant goalkeeper Immanuel Quickley, the star who lost on Sunday in Portland, finished 1 out of 11 on the field. Alec Burks, in front of his old team, was worse, going with 3 out of 14.
“We learn from that,” Rivers said. “How many times have I grown 13 by half? Not too many.”