Donovan Mitchell, Jazz beat Nuggets behind three-point mastery

Utah-Denver is just playoff basketball fun, and no one is going to be upset if that first-round series goes seven games.

After wasting Donovan Mitchell’s 57-point performance in Game 1, the Jazz bounced back with a 124-105 victory against Denver in Game 2 on Wednesday, evening the best-of-seven series.

It was a game Utah needed. The Jazz were again without starting point Mike Conley, who left the bubble Sunday to be with his wife for the birth of their child and is now back in Orlando in quarantine awaiting release.

Mitchell still had an impressive effort, scoring 21 of his 30 points in the third quarter. He also had eight assists, making the Nuggets pay for their attention to him. It was not a one-man show. Jordan Clarkson scored 26 points off the bench and seven Jazz players combined to make 20 three-pointers.

Here are the keys to Utah's victory:

Jazz crush it with the three-ball

Utah was the best three-point shooting team percentage-wise (38 percent) and sixth-best in made threes per game (13.4) during the regular season.

The Jazz made use of three-pointers, shooting 45.5 percent and scoring 60 points on threes. Mitchell was 6-for-7, Joe Ingles and Clarkson were each 4-for-9 and Royce O’Neale 3-for-4 to lead the way.

Without having the shot-tracking data immediately available, it seemed like a lot of those three were open looks with Denver scrambling to catch up with the ball. Utah made Denver pay for double-teaming and spending so much time trying to limit Mitchell’s scoring.

It also revealed Mitchell’s growth. He struggled at times with double-teams and finding the open shooter in his second year last season, leading to bad shots or turnovers. But through film study, coaching and experience, he has a much better handle on what defenses present and is able to expose weaknesses. Seven of his assists were on threes.

Denver can’t take advantage of Jokic’s effort

In Game 1, Rudy Gobert, one of the best defenders in the NBA, guarded Nikola Jokic for about 11 minutes, according to NBA Advanced Stats Player Tracking analysis. Jokic scored 29 points during those minutes, including 11-for-20 from the field and 4-for-7 on three-pointers.

Jokic had similar success in Game 2 with 28 points, five offensive rebounds and six assists, but Denver wasn’t able to translate that into better team offense.

Guard Jamal Murray had a quiet 14 points, Torey Craig was scoreless and Paul Millsap had five points.

To be fair, offense wasn’t the main problem as Michael Porter Jr. continued his stellar restart with 28 points.

Denver coach Michael Malone’s issue will be on the defensive end.

Depth issues catching up with Nuggets?

Denver held onto the No. 3 slot in the seeding games, but the Nuggets are still without guard Gary Harris (hip) and guard-forward Will Barton, who left the bubble for further rehab on his injured right knee.

The Nuggets were one of the teams impacted by COVID-19, closing their practice facility after they left for the Orlando area. Once inside the bubble, the Nuggets didn’t have enough healthy players to scrimmage 5-on-5 in practice and didn’t get any 5-on-5 competition until a scrimmage a week before the seeding games began.

Denver isn’t the only team with depth and injury issues at this point, but it clearly could use Harris and Barton.

Follow USA TODAY Sports NBA reporter Jeff Zillgitt on Twitter @JeffZillgitt