Utah Jazz: How Strong Will Utah Finish 2014-15?
The season for the Utah Jazz started off like a snowstorm.
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The Jazz looked like they were trapped inside of the mediocrity and failure that plagued them last season under the leadership of former head coach Tyrone Corbin. The Jazz started off the season with high hopes and began knocking at a future-filled door that they thought was open.
For as long as the Jazz were knocking, it didn’t matter because for a while the snow-filled challenges behind the door stood so high that it towered taller than the 6’11” Enes Kanter.
Then the lowest of lows happened and the Jazz ended up losing nine straight games at the end of November and in the beginning of December. The Jazz fell to 5-16 and it looked like they were destined for a top five draft pick.
Shortly a month after when the All-Star break arrived the Jazz decided to trade away Kanter to the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the door suddenly flew wide open. The snowstorm was finally over.
The Jazz walked through their future filled door and it now looks like they are on pace to become a Western Conference playoff team as soon as next season. Since the Kanter trade the Jazz have gone on an incredible pace posting a record of 17-9.
Even though the Jazz have accomplished a lot during the second half of the season, with only three games left now is not the time to let up. If the Jazz want to get out of the lottery team mentality that they’ve been stuck in the most recent decade they need to make winning these last remaining games a high priority.
The Jazz need to finish this season strong against three teams in the Portland Trail Blazers, Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets, all of which easily could be playing in the Western Conference Finals, to show to the rest of the league that next season they will be a team to reckon with.
For example, it was 5:21 remaining in the fourth quarter when the Jazz played against the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night and they had a true spurt of excellence. Jeff Green attempted to drive through the lane but Gordon Hayward poked the ball away from him and got a steal. Hayward was then on a one-on-one fast break with Nick Calathes as his defender.
Hayward made a spin move on Calathes in the open court and then finished the shot over a trailing Courtney Lee, and the crowd went crazy.
The next immediate possession, Derrick Favors got a rebound and advanced the ball to Dante Exum who wisely passed it to a streaking Rodney Hood. As Hood surveyed the field he noticed that he was on a two-on-one secondary break. Hood got the ball, took one dribble and made the intelligent play as he threw a look-away lob to Rudy Gobert, who was cutting on the baseline.
Gobert caught the pass with one hand, slammed it home, and then proceeded to salute to everyone inside of Energy Solutions Arena. The Grizzlies, who were once tied a minute earlier, were losing 86-82 and with 4:31 seconds left, they called time out.
The Jazz ended up losing the game to one point as Hayward missed the game-tying free throw but it’s moments like this that show that the Jazz are dying to become one of the elite teams in the Western Conference and when they make plays like that, it’s hard to argue that they are not on their way.
Since the All-Star break the Jazz have shown that they have the ability to play with the best teams in the league. The current record of the team is 36-43, which leaves them as the 11th-best team in the West. Even though they will be a lottery team again, it’s not because this season was a failure.
This season was a success because the Jazz had the 13th-toughest schedule in the NBA, and still almost managed to finish with a .500 record in a daunting Western Conference.
But of course coming across wins while knowing the playoffs aren’t in the immediate future isn’t an easy task, go ask the Phoenix Suns. When the Jazz played against the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night they almost fell victim to sleepwalking and taking a bad loss to an even worse team.
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The Jazz didn’t play well in the first half, but when the second half began they turned it on.
The Kings almost stole the game as they shot well from the three-point line going 7-0f-16. But the Jazz matched their offensive firepower by scoring 18 more points from the three-point line going 13-of-31. The Jazz also cleaned up the boards well as they out rebounded the Kings 47-31 and they featured four players who grabbed eight or more rebounds.
The ability to not take any opponent for granted is a lesson that this young team should instill.
As the season starts to come to its impending close it’s imperative that the Jazz finish strong. People are starting to see how great this team could be. The Jazz are even ranked as the No. 12 team in Marc Stein’s power rankings.
The Jazz need to make a push for the top ten and stay there.
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