NBA Game Summary - Washington at Utah

Salt Lake City, UT (SportsNetwork.com) - John Wall tallied 24 points, nine rebounds and six assists and the Washington Wizards pushed their win streak to five games with an 88-84 triumph over the Utah Jazz.

Paul Pierce added 18 points for Washington, which ended Utah's six-game win streak. It also broke a three-game losing skid in Utah.

"This probably wasn't one of our better games," admitted Wizards coach Randy Wittman. "But we gutted it out because we got stops."

The Wizards held on despite a number of crucial mistakes down the stretch. First, holding a four-point lead with 20 seconds to play, Pierce traveled on an inbounds pass. Then, Washington's defense allowed Gordon Hayward to fly in for an alley-oop on a side out-of-bounds play, and Wall dribbled the ball off his foot under Utah's basket with 11 ticks remaining, leaving the door open.

But Hayward's 3-point attempt was off the mark, and Wall hit two free throws to secure the win.

Hayward scored a game-high 26 points, Derrick Favors netted 16 and Rudy Gobert pulled down 14 rebounds in the loss.

"We played hard like we always do, we just came up short," said Hayward.

Utah trailed 44-42 at halftime but controlled the early portion of the third quarter and led by five 3 1/2 minutes in. Wall dominated the next stretch of the game, scoring the next five points before finding Pierce for a 3 that put Washington back in front.

Pierce hit two more triples over the next few minutes to give the Wizards a 63-54 advantage.

They never trailed after that despite Utah putting the pressure on late.