SALT LAKE CITY — Embattled Julius Randle was rolling. Mitchell Robinson was slamming. And the Knicks were winning by 12 after a 24-2 romp late in the third quarter.
But as in Los Angeles, the Knicks blew another double-digit lead and suffered a 113-104 defeat to the powerful Jazz on Monday at Vivint Arena.
Awful offensively in the fourth quarter, the Knicks fell to a season-worst 24-30 and 0-2 on the make-or-break western trip with the trade deadline looming.
“It’s tough. 0-2 to start the trip,” said Randle, who scored 30 points. “We could easily be 2-0, but we’re competing against teams who are trying to make the playoffs and compete for championships.”
The Knicks mustered just 16 points in the fourth before two meaningless buckets in the final 40 seconds. The Knicks won games like this last season with steely fourth quarters and now lose them.
“Every team is different,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “We played well for three quarters. You got a smaller margin for error on the road. The fourth quarter is different — the intensity of it. Our turnovers put them in open floor and they got easy buckets. There’s a small different between winning and losing. Right now we’re falling short and got to improve.”
The Jazz, missing center Rudy Gobert and out-for-the-season Joe Ingles, moved to 33-21 as Donovan Mitchell killed his hometown team with 32 points.
Randle racked up a team-high in points, and looked to be in All-Star form for three quarters. Robinson went for 19 points and 21 rebounds. But Randle got quiet late and Robinson didn’t come up big enough in the end, losing a defensive rebound to Mitchell, who fed it to burly Udoka Azubuike for a pivotal slam dunk.
“Winning plays,’’ Mitchell said.
Robinson proceeded to miss two key free throws with 3:01 left and the Knicks had no firepower down the stretch.
The killer came when Evan Fournier capped a poor outing by bouncing the ball off his foot and Bojan Bogdanovich raced in for a fast-break dunk to make it 102-97 with under two minutes left.
“These past two losses are good and bad,” RJ Barrett said. “The good thing we’re playing extremely well for most of the game and taking it to these teams and have them back on their heels. That’s the positive part. Once we get to that point, don’t give them any life.”
A Randle to Barrett fast break lifted the lead to 82-70 with 3:14 left in the third capping that 24-2 run. Randle rolled a bounce pass to Barrett, who missed a layup but Randle followed with the tap-in with 3:14 left in the third.
But the Jazz closed the quarter well and were within 86-82 after three, buoyed by a third-chance tip-in by Jordan Clarkson. It may or may not have been a coincidence that Cam Reddish had checked into the contest just after the 24-2 run and the Knicks saw their lead disintegrate.
While backup point guard Immanuel Quickley became a train wreck early in the fourth quarter, Mike Conley Jr. drained a 3-pointer to get the Jazz within 86-85 with 10:15 left and they zoomed ahead for good.
With the Knicks shorthanded, the rarely used Reddish played 15 minutes, scoring six points, shooting 1 of 4 from the field but was a minus-21.
The Knicks were missing starting point guard Kemba Walker, who was taking a rest day on the first night of a back-to-back. And they were also minus rookie shooting guard Quentin Grimes (sore knee).
That allowed Alec Burks to slide in as the starter at point guard and moved little-used Reddish into a sold part of the backup unit.