While the Utah Jazz have been impressive all season, the biggest factor to a Houston Rockets victory is sticking to what has worked all season long.
While the preseason for the Utah Jazz was looking bleak with the departure of Gordon Hayward, the resurgence of Ricky Rubio and unexpected superstardom of rookie Donovan Mitchell has created some kind of jazzy powerhouse in the least jazzy of cities.
The Utah Jazz have a lot more up their sleeves than most pegged them for, and while they clung on to the 5-seed to end up playing the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round, nobody expected them to take care of business against Russell Westbrook and company in the matter that they did.
Two of their four clinching victories were by 13 or more points. Against a man as talented and motivated as Russell Westbrook, with a priming Paul George by his side, this team truly deserves a nod of respect.
But alas, the Houston Rockets are without a doubt the favorites in this series, although the Jazz are not being slept on by a long shot by now.
Houston swept the series in the regular season, handing the Jazz a tough loss amidst their own dominant 20-2 string of victories. So the Jazz at their finest have already been defeated by the Rockets.
However, that doesn’t account for the playoff factors of pressure and history.
Both James Harden and Chris Paul have struggled in clutch moments throughout their careers, and the latter has never made the conference finals.
If those two can manage to play the same way they have all season, there is no reason why they shouldn’t come out victorious. Bearing that in mind, here are the five keys to the Houston Rockets’ series against the Utah Jazz.