-
Tim BontempsESPN
When the Utah Jazz got back together for training camp in December, they’d had three months to think about how the previous season had ended: with Mike Conley’s potential game-winning 3-pointer hitting the Denver in some way. Nuggets turned.
During those three months, the Jazz thought over and over about that shot, about the 3-1 lead they’d blown up in that series, about failing to make it to the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. straight season. And they came back for the start of this campaign, determined to make sure things were different this time.
“I really feel like we came back with purpose this year,” said Rudy Gobert, Utah center. “I really feel like we have a chip on our shoulder, and we need it if we are going to do what we want to do this year.”
After their last victory Tuesday night, a 122-108 decision over the visiting Boston Celtics, the Jazz are now an NBA best 20-5 this season, winning 16 of their past 17 games.
And unlike the other teams floating around them at the top of the NBA ecosystem – the Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Philadelphia 76ers – Utah has no real superstar in its roster. Instead, the thing that has carried the Jazz through a third of the season so far is an ensemble cast that works in perfect harmony.
The result is a team that plays just as well as any other in the league, rolling through its opponents every night.
“Every time you see a team forming itself in front of the players and coaches, it is gratifying,” said jazz coach Quin Snyder. “If you have a team that collectively tries to play a certain way and is committed to it, I think that’s what we have.”
Part of the Jazz’s dedication stems from the end of last season. In all fairness, the entire 2019-2020 campaign has been challenging for Utah. The team expected to make a push forward last year after trading for Conley, only for him to adapt immensely for the first 12 years of his career to playing on a team other than the Memphis Grizzlies. Then the Jazz added Jordan Clarkson to boost their bench score throughout the season – only to lose offensive forward Bojan Bogdanovic ahead of the team’s time in the Florida bubble due to wrist surgery.
And, of course, all of that pales in comparison to the fact that Utah was at the center of the league, stopping several months last March after Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, the team’s two stars, tested positive for COVID-19.
But instead of all of that – as well as Utah’s heartbreaking loss to Denver – that caused the Jazz to fall apart, it instead sent them into the off-season, determined to create something better.
“I think, you know, the main thing that went into it was just our motivation during the off season,” Mitchell said. ‘Boys come in. I look at Royce [O’Neale]. People don’t watch Royce because we don’t play on TV, but you watch Royce, and he got into the best shape of his career this year. The determination in that sense. You see the product on the floor, but I think the most important thing is what you see on the floor.
“He and I went to Miami and worked three or four weeks straight. The things I saw him do I haven’t seen him do in his four years. Not to say he isn’t working hard, another level.”
“I think we saw the difference there. We saw the work ethic take another leap forward,” Mitchell explained.
What has helped the Jazz even more is that, in a season where there are so many things in the air for so many teams, Utah knows exactly what it is and what it wants to be.
After his initial growing pains last season, Conley – who is currently out with a hamstring injury – played better in the bubble, and was excellent to start this season. Bogdanovic is back from wrist surgery and is starting to get in shape. Joe Ingles shoots career-high percentages across the board. And Clarkson is currently the runaway leader to win the competition’s Sixth Man of the Year Award. Meanwhile, the only prominent player Utah added during the off-season – big man Derrick Favors – had spent the majority of his first nine seasons in Utah before being dealt to the New Orleans Pelicans for the last off-season, making him very familiar was with what it was. the Jazz wish he did.
And of course the team has seen some excellent play from its stars. Gobert remains the league’s foremost defensive player, anchoring a Jazz unit that, despite adding more offensive players in recent years, still ranks third in the NBA. Mitchell, on the other hand, went in on Tuesday with a career best of 41.6% from the 3-point range – and that was before going 6-for-13 from the 3-line as part of his game high. 36 points.
Despite Mitchell’s shooting performance, it was telling after the game that what he, Snyder and Gobert all talked about was instead Mitchell’s decision-making: He played point guard for the injured Conley, he had nine assists and just two turnovers in 36 minutes. .
“Decision-making,” said Gobert, when asked where Mitchell’s biggest improvement was this season. “He can really understand the pace of the game and find his teammates.
“I think he’s gotten better every year, but this year is really the year it’s progressed – and when he does, the team just goes to another level.”
The Jazz know what level they want to reach this season. It’s been 13 years since Utah last reached the Western Conference Finals, when Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer led them there in 2008 and they lost to the Lakers. It’s been 23 years since Utah last reached the NBA Finals, when John Stockton and Karl Malone lost to the Chicago Bulls for the second consecutive season.
Time will tell if Utah has the ability to get to that level, although at least the numbers give them a chance to fight. Utah is the only team in the league to rank in the top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency. The only others in the top 10 in both categories? The Lakers and Bucks. And while questions will still remain as to whether the Jazz will struggle to slow down teams that can pull Gobert off the brink, Utah offensively packs extra punch – the Jazz leads the NBA in 17 3-pointers made per game – give them a balance they didn’t have before.
And for those unsure of how high Utah’s ceiling ultimately is, the Jazz will have plenty of opportunities to make their case in the coming weeks. Starting with Tuesday’s win over Boston, the Jazz has a run of eight out of nine games against some of the league’s elite teams: the Celtics, Bucks, Miami Heat (twice), Sixers, Lakers and Clippers (twice ).
But in the end, the Jazz is not concerned about what happens in the next two weeks. Instead, it’s about getting ready for what lies ahead – and making sure they don’t have the same bitter taste in their mouths at the end of this season as they did when they left Orlando in September.
“I think the most important thing is to focus on what we’re doing,” Mitchell said. “This is the first game of a big piece we’ve come to, and we just have to focus on the little details. We have teams [scheduled] those players have high level players, deep playoff experience, and we just have to go out and do what we do.
“It’s not like we’re saying this is a make-or-break stretch for us. … we’re not playing to be ready in February … we’re playing to be ready in [July]. That’s when we should have our best product, and these are good tests for us. “