SALT LAKE CITY — As Jimmer Fredette checked in the game for the first time in the second quarter, he was greeted with a familiar sound: thunderous applause. The Vivint Arena crowd rose and gave the former BYU star a standing ovation.
And for the remainder of Fredette’s 14 minutes, those cheers never really stopped.
The crowd urged him to shoot each time he touched the ball, and let out a loud groan each time he missed (which happened a lot on Monday — Fredette finished 1-for-10 in his return to Utah).
It was easy for Jazz fans to cheer for him, too — especially late. In the fourth quarter, as Fredette was firing away to the delight of the crowd, Utah was putting the finishing touches on a 125-92 blowout win over the Suns.
Fredette’s lone bright spot was a hanging bank shot late in the game that caused the crowd to erupt in a similar fashion as they do on Rudy Gobert or Donovan Mitchell dunks.
And that was easy to judge since Gobert had plenty of dunks in this one. Gobert slammed it home six times to set a new NBA record for dunks in a season. He has 275 this season. Gobert led the Jazz with 27 points and 10 rebounds.
Phoneix’s Devin Booker had 59 points on 19-of-34 shooting. He was the only Sun to score in double figures.
The Jazz improved to 44-30 on the season.
This story will be updated.
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