Clippers focus on Mitchell in Game 3.

LOS ANGELES » Moments after taking a hobbled jog back to the visiting locker room, Donovan Mitchell slipped back through the Utah Jazz bench and slung an arm over the shoulder of his head coach.

It looked at least a little like the 24-year-old was lobbying for a return to the court as the Jazz trailed in the fourth quarter of Game 3 of their second-round playoff series against the Clippers. But as he tried to work Quin Snyder on Saturday night, Kawhi Leonard was working on the court: The Clippers star sank a 3-pointer on the other end of the floor, putting his team ahead by 18 and squelching any Jazz comeback efforts at Staples Center.

Better to save Mitchell for another day — when the Jazz still have a chance.

“He’s in good shape; he could have gone back in the game,” Snyder said. “But at that point, the lead had stretched.”

Such decisions are feeling increasingly important as the Jazz try to manage a fickle injury situation.

Injuries have been the cloud hanging over Utah’s title ambitions. Though the top seed blasted through the season with a stalwart two-way group, Mitchell’s ankle and point guard Mike Conley’s hamstring (which has kept him out the first three games of the series) could be the biggest factors that leverage what is now a 2-1 series in their favor after the Clippers won, 132-106.

There have been very few players this postseason as dynamic as Mitchell, the fourth-year guard who still scored 30 points with four assists in his 32 minutes. But he was guarded when discussing his right ankle, which kept him out of the last month of the regular season and has appeared to bother him in this series.

“It’s been just trying to manage it,” he said. “I don’t really know what else to tell you; I don’t want to say too much. It was just the landing (that hurt in the fourth quarter), but I’m good. I’ll be ready for Game 4.”

After Mitchell torched them for 82 points in the first two games, the Clippers adapted their defense. They aggressively pressured Mitchell with double-teams every time he held the ball at the top of the key for more than a few seconds. On his patented, winding drives to the rim, it was common to see no fewer than four Clippers stationed in the paint around him.

Even as a top-flight scorer on a contending team, it’s not often that Mitchell sees that kind of attention: He said the last time he saw similar double teams was in high school.

Leonard also took a more personal interest in guarding Mitchell’s possessions, stepping into his past life as role-playing defensive stopper while scraping loose a pair of steals. The result was Mitchell failing to score a point on three shots in the first quarter — he had never before been held scoreless for a quarter of a playoff game.

Snyder’s impression was that Mitchell, who typically shares ballhandling responsibilities with Conley, made the right decisions early when doubled. He threaded difficult passes to his open teammates, but those shooters didn’t convert enough – the four assists did not accurately reflect how well Mitchell was seeing the floor. The Jazz did finish with 19 3-pointers, the same number as the Clippers, but at a slightly less efficient clip (43.2% to the hosts’ 52.8%).

“To be honest, I think if you look at the possessions where they were doubling Donovan, I think we got really good looks,” Snyder said. “When a team really picks up and gets into you, that’s when you have to attack them.”