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Tim BontempsESPN
When the Utah Jazz reunited for training camp in December, they had three months to think about how the previous season had ended: the potential 3-pointer winner of the game Mike Conley was somehow spinning against the Denver Nuggets.
In those three months, the Jazz always thought of that shot, the 3-1 advantage they threw in that series, the failure of the first round of the Western Conference playoffs for a second straight season. And they are back for the start of this campaign determined to make sure things go differently this time.
“I really feel like we’re back this year with a goal,” said Rudy Gobert, downtown Utah. “I really feel like we have a chip on our shoulder and we need that if we’re going to do what we want to do this year.”
After Tuesday night’s most recent victory, a 122-108 decision over the Boston Celtics, the Jazz are now the best NBA 20-5 this season and have won 16 of their last 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 doesn’t have a real superstar on its roster. Instead, what brought Jazz to this point through a third of the season is an overall cast that works in perfect harmony.
The result is a team that plays as well as anyone in the league and moves with opponents at night.
“Every time you see a team molding for players and coaches, it’s fun,” said jazz coach Quin Snyder. “When you have a team that collectively tries to play in a certain way and commit to it, I think that’s what we have.”
Part of Jazz’s commitment comes from the way it ended last season. The entire 2019-20 campaign, frankly, was a challenge for Utah. The team expected to make a boost before last year after trading for Conley, only for him to fight hard to adapt to the game of a team other than the Memphis Grizzlies in the first 12 years of his career. Then the Jazz added Jordan Clarkson to boost his bench on the bench during the season – losing only starting striker Bojan Bogdanovic to the team’s time in the Florida ball due to wrist surgery.
And all of this, of course, is fading compared to the fact that Utah is at the center of the league closing in March last year for several months after Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, the two stars of the team, tested positive for COVID-19.
But rather than all that – as well as Utah’s heartbreaking loss to Denver – that caused Jazz to break up, it sent them out of season determined to create something better.
“I think, you know, the biggest thing that went into it was just our off-season motivation,” Mitchell said. “Guys coming in. I look at Royce [O’Neale]. People don’t watch Royce because we don’t play TV, but you watch Royce, and he’s in the best shape of his career this year. Determination in this regard. You see the product on the floor, but I think the biggest thing is what you see on the floor.
“He and I went to Miami and trained for three or four weeks in a row. The things I’ve seen him do, I haven’t seen him do in his four years. Not to mention he doesn’t work hard, but he took it to another level. “
“I think that’s where I saw the difference. I saw work ethic take a new leap,” Mitchell explained.
What helped Jazz was that, in a season where so many things are 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 currently has a hamstring injury – played better in the ball and was outstanding to start this season. Bogdanovic returned after the wrist operation and began to round in shape. Joe Ingles has a high career percentage. And Clarkson is the runaway leader at the moment, who has won the league’s sixth prize. Meanwhile, the only prominent player Utah added in the offseason – big man Derrick Favors – spent the vast majority of the first nine seasons in Utah before being split with the New Orleans Pelicans last season, leaving him extremely familiar. with what Jazz was he would want him to do.
And, of course, the team saw an excellent game continued by its stars. Gobert remains the league’s first defensive player, anchoring a Jazz unit that, despite adding more offended players in recent years, is still ranked third in the NBA. Mitchell, on the other hand, came in on Tuesday, scoring the best 41.6% of his career in the 3-point range – and that was before he came out 6-for-13 on line 3 as part of his maximum 36 games of points.
Despite Mitchell’s shooting, after the game it was revealing that the thing he, Snyder and Gobert all talked about was Mitchell’s decisions: The guard for injured Conley had nine assists and only two turnover in 36 minutes.
“Making decisions,” Gobert said when asked where Mitchell’s biggest improvement this season has been. “He is really able to understand the rhythm of the game and be able to find his colleagues.
“I think it’s improved every year, but this year is really the year it’s moving forward – and when it does, the team is just going to another level.”
Jazz knows 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 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 a second straight season.
Time will tell if Utah has the ability to reach that level, although the numbers give them at least a chance to fight. Utah is the only team in the league in the top five, both in terms of offensive and defensive efficiency. The only others in the top 10 in both categories? Lakers and Bucks. And while questions remain about whether Jazz will have a hard time slowing down teams that can take Gobert off the rim, Utah’s fist added offensively – Jazz leads the NBA by 17 points of 3 points scored per game – gives them a balance they did not have before.
And for those unsure of how high the Utah ceiling is, Jazz will have plenty of opportunities in the next few weeks to support its argument. Since Tuesday’s victory over Boston, the Jazz have a span of eight out of nine games against elite league teams: Celtics, Bucks, Miami Heat (twice), Sixers, Lakers and Clippers (twice).
In the end, however, Jazz is not worried about what will happen in the next two weeks. Instead, it’s about being prepared for what’s going on – and making sure they don’t have the same bitter taste in their mouths at the end of this season that they had when they left Orlando in September.
“I think the biggest thing is just focusing on what we’re doing,” Mitchell said. “This is the first game of a large scope that we have and we just have to focus on the small details. We have teams [scheduled] who have high level players, deep playoff experience and we just have to get out there and do what we do.
“It’s not like we say it’s a stretch for us. … We don’t play to be ready until February … we play to be ready in [July]. Then we have to have our best product, and these are good tests for us. “