SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 103-97 win over the Sacramento Kings from KSL.com's Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Rudy Gobert's superstar rim protection wins the game for the Jazz

The typical superstar move is this: with under a minute to go, making a big shot that gives your team the victory. We celebrate these kind of players: we give them shoe deals, we give them super-max contracts, we give them endorsement deals, we give them some of the highest levels of fame in society.

Rudy Gobert is probably never going to get those things, because stopping shots isn't as sexy as making them. But this is a grade A, superstar level play that no other player in the NBA is capable of making.

First of all, notice how the Jazz are able to defend this play, because of Gobert's presence. Ingles can stay attached and trail Bogdan Bogdanovic, a tremendous 3-point shooter, forcing him into the path of Gobert. That mostly eliminates the "game-winning three" option.

But second of all, that Gobert can make this play at all is incredible. Look how high he gets! He uses every bit of his 9-foot-9 standing reach to get to this ball and prevent it from going in.

That block sealed the game for the Jazz, giving them a two-possession lead that they would never relinquish.

It wasn't Gobert's only important play of the game; he also made game-sealing two free throws later on in the contest, and rebounded Joe Ingles' free-throw miss and finished it up with a dunk.

Overall, Gobert finished with 22 points, 13 rebounds, and four blocks. He kept mistakes to a minimum, with only two fouls and one turnover. When he was on the court, the Jazz outscored the Kings by 19 points.

The above isn't to say that Gobert doesn't get respect: from those who watch the NBA religiously, he's very well-regarded. I think it's likely at this point that he'll earn the Defensive Player of the Year award, and Quin Snyder thinks that it shouldn't even be a question.

"I think it's an empirical fact. Empirical from the standpoint that if you look at every number, he's dominant. Like, not just good, he has been dominant. I'm not pining for him. I will, but I'm just stating what is happening and what Rudy is doing is special right now."

It really is.

2. Jazz find themselves in close game thanks to 3-point differential

Usually, I'd show the difference between two teams' tendencies with a shot chart comparison, but for this game, just looking at a table provides a more stark contrast between how Sacramento got their points and how the Jazz did. This is from Ben Falk's excellent stats website, Cleaning the Glass. Note that CTG takes out last-second heaves from their data to make it fair for everyone, so the numbers don't exactly match what is in your box score.

Let's start at the rim: the Jazz took more than twice as many shots at the rim as the Kings did, layups and dunks. They made 24 more points on those kinds of shots than the Kings did, a huge advantage. Great start.

Instead, the Jazz forced the Kings to take a ton of mid-range shots: 49 of their FGA attempts were from those low-efficiency areas that the Jazz love to see opponents shoot from. Only 13 of those went in for Sacramento, or 28 percent. Meanwhile, the Jazz took only 13 shots from that same distance, and made five. Good! Free throws, layups, and threes are the way to go.

We now advance to the 3-point column: in the end, the Jazz took five more normal 3-point attempts than the Kings did. But the Kings made 13 of their 19 threes, while the Jazz only made six of their 24 attempts. That's a huge swing, 21 points.

Now, when you see a number like 13-19 (including the heaves, the Kings went 14-21 from the arc, or 67 percent), know that a percentage that high is very unusual. In fact, it's the second-best shooting night of any team in any NBA game this season.

Was that because of bad 3-point defense from the Jazz? I don't think it was. 18 of those 21 attempts were contested by the Jazz, a good number. The Kings just made shots like these from Buddy Hield:

The Jazz's 3-point defense wasn't brilliant, but I thought it was pretty good. 18 of 21 shots were contested, and Kings just made 14 of them. Here's Hield on a stepback, for example: pic.twitter.com/s6gsOSUcTB — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 18, 2018

And that the Jazz still allowed a 94 defensive rating, despite their opponent having one of the best shooting nights of the season, is pretty incredible. This team is on a roll.

3. A Jazz death lineup?

The biggest disappointment of tonight's game was the production of the bench units. Royce O'Neale (-19 in 16:39), Jonas Jerebko (-15 in 8:58), and Dante Exum (-15 in 12:53) all had big negative plus-minuses in relatively short stints on the court. Even starting power forward and backup center Derrick Favors ended up with a -15 in his 24:47 on the court.

But the Jazz won the game, right? That's because of one lineup: the Ricky Rubio, Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles, Jae Crowder, and Gobert look that the Jazz have gone to more and more in the clutch in recent games.

That lineup only played 12.5 minutes Saturday night, but it outscored the Kings 43-15 when it did. A 28-point advantage in just over a quarter of basketball! That's almost UConn women-esque. And the Jazz needed every bit of the production it got out of the lineup.

That was especially true at the end of the game, as the Jazz were down 88-87 with 3:51 left. From there, the Jazz outscored the Kings 16-9 the rest of the way.

That lineup has been good in general, too. It's outscored teams by 109 points in the 119 minutes it's been used since Crowder's acquisition, good for a +42 net rating.

"They have to closeout to Ricky now because he's hitting shots," Mitchell explained. “They have to closeout to me, which allows me to get into the paint. They have to closeout to Joe and Jae."

Rubio added more reasons why the lineup works so well. "We can switch one through four, which helps a lot in the pick and rolls. Rudy can get the ball in the paint, and there are four guys that can handle the ball and take the pressure off of the other guys. We're doing a pretty good job, and especially on defense, we're connected.

That lineup will probably get even more time in the playoffs, for the reasons Rubio and Mitchell stated: it's versatile and effective on both ends, causing big problems for the opposition. We'll need more minutes to prove it's long-term effectiveness, but so far, so good.

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