Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert played through illness on Saturday night in their game against the Brooklyn Nets. It sure didn't seem like it, though, as the Frenchman was his usual dominant self, patrolling the paint and anchoring the Jazz defense that put the clamps on the Nets for almost the entire contest.
Following their 114-98 home win, Gobert explained why he chose to gut it out, per ESPN:
Gobert scored 23 points, hauled in 17 rebounds, swatted away three shots, and made 9-of-12 baskets from the field. He did all this damage in 34 minutes while battling the flu.
Gobert has played in all 69 games for Utah so far this year, starting in 68 of them. The last time he played the full season was in 2014-15, back when he was a sophomore. He came close to doing so in 2016-17, missing just one contest that season.
13 games remain on Utah's schedule for the season. The Jazz are currently in seventh place and are competing for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. They are still within striking distance for a top-four finish, as only three games separate them from the third-seeded Houston Rockets. Thus, it doesn't seem like they will give the reigning Defensive Player of the Year some days off the rest of the way.