Poor third quarter costs Jazz in 99-91 loss at Denver

Denver • In any given game, being outscored by 22 points in the third quarter is a tragedy.

For the Jazz this season, it’s a statistic.

The Jazz sported the second-worst third-quarter defensive rating in the NBA going into Friday night’s game (113.1). On the road, it’s been even worse (120.9).

So it was no surprise, then, that the Jazz (16-23) were overwhelmed at the Pepsi Center as the Nuggets (21-17) dashed to a 99-91 win thanks to a third-quarter surge from Jamal Murray and Trey Lyles. In a season that saw Utah take its 16th road defeat of the year, it’s been the frustrating standard.

“There’s stretches … where we’re not as connected, not as determined as we need to be,” coach Quin Snyder said. “There’s a level of mental toughness that you need when a team’s on a run to stop the run.”

The Jazz had led at halftime thanks to a 20-9 run to close the second quarter, but coming out of the intermission Murray (26 points) was blazing. As Utah struggled to stay in front of him, he helped spark a 38-16 Nuggets advantage in the pivotal third quarter, hitting eight of his first nine shots.

Miscues on defense led to more miscues, and the Jazz defense broke down as they tried to overcompensate. By the end of the third — the only quarter Denver outscored Utah — the Jazz trailed by 19.

What made this letdown more of a knife in Utah’s side was who helped lead the way for the Nuggets: Lyles, a third-year forward whom the Jazz traded away this summer for the pick that became Donovan Mitchell. While Mitchell’s rise have made it popular to lampoon the trade in Utah, Lyles proved that Denver profited as well — he scored a career high 26 points in the game.

Jazz players said while they had played a connected first half on defense, when they came out of the locker room for the second, that communication dried up.

“We just didn’t talk, and against a team that plays connected and can shoot, we have to talk to each other,” Mitchell said. “We just gotta come out with a sense of urgency. It’s been a third-quarter problem for a while. We’ve got to come out with the same urgency as the beginning of the game.”

Mitchell made a multi-pronged impact with 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists. But it was hard to ignore that the first points (on a dunk) of the second half for Utah’s most dynamic scorer came with less than three minutes left in the game. Several second-half possessions passed without him touching the ball: He had the third-lowest usage rate (15 percent) of any Jazzman in the second half.

It followed that Mitchell didn’t have many touches when the game was on the line: He shot only five of his 13 attempts in the second half. While Ricky Rubio matched Mitchell’s 15-point line against the Nuggets, many fans have started seeing Mitchell as Utah’s point guard of the future.

Friday’s game did nothing to reverse that steady drumbeat.

It also didn’t seem to bring Utah any closer to finding a more stable solution at power forward, where the Jazz are platooning Thabo Sefolosha, Jonas Jerebko and Joe Johnson. After Sefolosha sat in Utah’s last loss in Denver, he started in favor of Jerebko. And while Sefolosha added 10 points and made some stops, Utah had trouble matching up with Lyles for the second straight game. Johnson was 2 for 9 on the night. Jerebko did not play.

Snyder said there’s a part of him that was happy for Lyles for taking advantage of his opportunity in Denver. But he wished it hadn’t come at Utah’s expense.

There’s not much time for the Jazz to languish over the latest loss. Already burnishing the NBA’s worst road record, Utah has its next three games at Miami, at Washington and at Charlotte. And they have to figure out how to solve a riddle that’s vexed them for much of the year.

“We gotta be able to cut the wad off — a hard foul or something,” said Rodney Hood, who had 12 points. “We gotta do something to wake us up before it gets too late.”