Jazz 83, Bobcats 80
SALT LAKE CITY -- Center Derrick Favors made a go-ahead dunk with 58 seconds remaining, and point guard Trey Burke scored the final two of his 21 points on a late layup to lift the Utah Jazz to an 83-80 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats on Monday at EnerySolutions Arena.
Burke's basket with 19 seconds remaining barely beat the shot clock, and it put Utah ahead 80-77 in the low-scoring but exciting game. Burke added five assists to help the Jazz win their second home game in a row and their seventh consecutive game in Salt Lake City against Charlotte.
Former Jazz center Al Jefferson tried to tie the game with a 3-pointer with 10 seconds remaining, but his shot crashed off the rim.
Favors and guard Gordon Hayward then clinched the Jazz's 10th straight win over Charlotte with free throws.
Utah (10-24) beat Charlotte (14-18) for the second time in less than two weeks. The Jazz earned an 88-85 road win on Dec. 21.
Jefferson played in Utah for the first time since he signed a three-year deal with Charlotte in the offseason. He moved on after the Jazz made it clear to him that the franchise was rebuilding with younger players.
Jefferson, Utah's leading scorer from 2010-13, finished with 18 points on 8-of-23 shooting, and he pulled down 10 rebounds.
In addition to missing the potential game-tying trey, Jefferson also missed a 4-foot shot that could have put the Bobcats ahead by one with 43 seconds remaining.
At the buzzer, Jefferson hit a 3-pointer from 41 feet away, but that only turned it into a three-point loss instead of a six-point defeat.
Guard Gerald Henderson scored 19 points and point guard Kemba Walker had 18 for Charlotte, which scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter and eventually erased the Jazz's 14-point lead.
The Jazz got a nice boost off the bench from shooting guard Alec Burks, who finished with 14 points and six rebounds.
Neither team shot well, with Utah hitting 42.5 percent from the field compared to the Bobcats' 36.9 percent shooting.
Utah held a 42-34 halftime lead but nearly blew it after a 27-point fourth-quarter explosion from Charlotte. That was the only quarter in which either team scored more than 21 points.
NOTES: Bobcats F Richard Jefferson posted a career-high point total the last time he played in Utah. His 40-point, 13-rebound effort led the Jazz to a 107-100 win over another one of his old teams, the Minnesota Timberwolves, on April 12 to keep Utah in playoff contention. ... Bobcats assistant Bob Weiss was the head coach of San Antonio in the 1986-87 season when Tyrone Corbin, now Utah's coach, played for the Spurs. ... Jefferson scored in double figures for the 19th consecutive game, and Charlotte G Kemba Walker ran his double-digit-scoring streak to 21 games. Walker and G Gerald Henderson had a similar streak snap at 18 games last spring. Jason Richardson and Gerald Wallace hold the franchise record for a duo hitting double digits with 28 straight from Dec. 14, 2007, through Feb. 8, 2008.
