The Utah Jazz Can’t Do Anything More To Prove They’re For Real (Until The Playoffs)

The Utah Jazz exist in a spot that traps a lot of teams: they’ve been good for a long time but have never felt like a real contender. Breaking free from that position is an incredibly difficult task and changing the public perception of your franchise is, arguably, even harder.

And yet, at 26-6, 3.5 games clear of the Clippers for first in the West and fresh off of demolishing the shorthanded Lakers on Wednesday night, the Jazz seem determined to make people believers. It’s usually impossible to do so in the regular season, as a team with repeated postseason failures is judged by that past until they show something different in the playoffs, but if there were ever a formula for doing so before then, Utah is following it.

They lord over the three-point line in a way we’ve never seen before, shooting (and making) more threes than anyone else in the league. This season, Utah leads the NBA in makes (17) and attempts (42.6) per game from deep and is third in three-point field goal percentage (39.9 percent). On the other end of the floor, the Jazz do not let teams score via triples — Utah gives up the second-fewest three-point attempts in the NBA (31.4) and the third-lowest opponent three-point percentage (34.7 percent), ushering opponents inside the line and into the waiting arms of Rudy Gobert. The 59.7 two-point attempts allowed per game are the most in the NBA, but teams are shooting just 49.1 percent from two, the second-lowest mark in the league.

All of this is to say, the most important real estate on the basketball court is where they are dominating on both ends, and, unsurprisingly, that’s a very good recipe for success. Other teams have tried similar strategies, but the Jazz really are uniquely constructed to any team you might compare them to in the recent past that has dominated in the regular season but fallen short come playoff time.

The 2014-15 Hawks, a team for which Quin Snyder was an assistant, shot threes at a similar efficiency (38 percent as a team) but not at the same rate (26.2 attempts per game), and the defense had a polar opposite strategy of selling out to protect the rim first and meaning to give up the three (25.8 opponent attempts per game that season was the most in the NBA). The 2017-18 Rockets were similarly focused on bombing threes and taking away the three-point line, but didn’t have the caliber of shooters around James Harden (36.2 percent from three as a team) and didn’t have an interior presence as capable as Gobert, allowing opponents to shoot 51.9 percent from two. The 2018-19 Bucks dominated defensively at the rim, but gave up 36.3 three-point attempts a game and only shot 35.3 percent as a team from deep.

All of this is to say, whatever team in that group you’re thinking this Jazz team reminds you of, you aren’t totally wrong. They have pieces of each, but a one-to-one comparison is really hard to find. In terms of a statistical profile is, as blasphemous as it may seem, the 2014-15 Warriors are actually closer than any of those other squads. The first Golden State title team of this century exploded on the scene by hoisting 27 threes a game, fourth-most in the NBA, and hitting them at a ludicrous 39.8 percent clip. Defensively, they were seventh in three-point attempts allowed (21.4), fifth in opponent three-point percentage (33.7), forced the third-most two-point attempts (65), and were the best in the league at forcing two-point misses (45.8 opposing two-point percentage).

Now, to be clear, they are some stark differences there as well. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson carried the load on that Golden State team in terms of shooting, taking 15.2 of their 27 three-point attempts per game. The Jazz have a much more egalitarian approach, as six players take four or more threes per night, double the number on that Golden State team. Defensively, the Warriors were one of the most versatile teams we’d seen to that point, particularly with their small-ball “Death Lineup” that featured Draymond Green at the five, Andre Iguodala and Harrison Barnes on the wing, and the Splash Brothers at guard. That switchability and athleticism all on the floor at once, combined with their shooting ability, was something the NBA had yet to see and didn’t have counters for yet.

The Jazz, meanwhile, are far more tied to their two-time DPOY in Gobert, and when he’s off the floor, it’s Derrick Favors manning the middle. That, more than the shooting, is where the questions will lie for this Jazz team come playoff time. The playoffs haven’t always been as kind to Gobert in the past, as teams have more time to figure out how to draw him away from the rim and attack the Utah defense. If a team finds a formula to exploit their reliance on him, there isn’t really a good Plan B to counter that. It’s the concern they have to have against the other top teams in the West, chiefly the Lakers and Clippers when they go to Anthony Davis or Serge Ibaka at center lineups.

Still, this is a team that, in the same vein as all of the aforementioned regular season juggernauts, demands that you be at your best to beat them on any given night, testing your ability to execute on both ends of the floor. The Utah offense is truly something to behold right now, with the way they move and flow, all connected and seemingly always on time — it is obvious that this is a team that has placed a premium on continuity, with even their main free agent acquisition this past offseason (Favors) being someone who knows Snyder’s system. They apply so much pressure to a defense with the way they pounce on any miscommunication, missed or late rotation, or poorly timed help.

Take this play against the Lakers, as Jordan Clarkson drives under the rim and gets walled off by three Lakers. He skips it to the top of the key to Donovan Mitchell, who sees Alex Caruso closing out and notices that both Marc Gasol and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope have stayed with Clarkson, leaving Favors wide open for a dunk before either can rotate back.

They are, seemingly always, one pass away from a bucket and see every opportunity a defense presents them. Against Charlotte, with the clock winding down in the quarter, Mitchell set up for what looked to be another high pick-and-roll with Gobert. As the Hornets try to anticipate what Charlotte wants to do, the soon-to-be weakside help strays up floor to trap Mitchell before he’s even gone, abandoning Joe Ingles in the corner.

Playing the Jazz right now is the best test in the league for how well a team is executing on defense, because they are so consistent at running their stuff that, eventually, they tend to break you down. You might hang around for awhile, a quarter or maybe even three, but for the most part, teams simply haven’t been able to match their constant execution for four quarters. Sometimes the barrage comes early, as it did against the Lakers. Sometimes it’s not until late, like against Charlotte, but it almost always comes, because whenever the opposing squad makes a mistake, they capitalize.

Their starting and closing lineup almost always has four players capable of putting the ball on the floor and initiating the offense, while also being elite catch-and-shoot players. Conley is back to being his best self after scuffling to start last season and learning his new team, and Mitchell has continued to grow as a more efficient scorer and, more importantly, a creator for others, becoming a bonafide star in the process. One of Ingles and Bojan Bogdanovic is almost always on the floor, and they are two of the best spot-up shooters in the game who can also be secondary creators (or in Ingles case, a primary one with the second unit). Royce O’Neale has developed into an elite 3-and-D forward, giving them the wing defender they desperately need while becoming a tremendous three-point shooter, allowing him to stay on the floor for their best offensive lineups as well.

And then you have Clarkson, who has the Sixth Man of the Year award locked up at this point. Clarkson has the greenest light to shoot off the bench this side of 2012-13 J.R. Smith, and he boasts the best efficiency marks of his career to boot. He has given them an extra dimension offensively, something they’ve craved since Mitchell burst onto the scene. For the first three years of Mitchell’s career, the biggest issue for Utah’s offense is figuring out who else can create for themselves. Conley gives them that with the starting unit, but it’s what Clarkson has done with the bench that, in my mind, has really separated this Jazz team so far this season. There aren’t the let-offs you get with most every other team in the league when the star sits, because Clarkson to this point has been one of the best individual scorers in the NBA.

The Jazz will need this to continue into the postseason and that is, of course, at the center of every major question they face. Can Clarkson still do this in the playoffs? Can Gobert be this impactful on defense in a playoff series with either of the L.A. teams? Will they be able to win a game or two when they inevitably have an off shooting night and have to find buckets in a different manner? Is O’Neale capable of taking on the elite wings of the West defensively every night in a series and continue to shoot at this level?

Those aren’t going to go away, and they aren’t the only team facing these questions. The Clippers, Bucks, and 76ers are also all in “prove it in the playoffs” situations, where nothing they do this regular season can quiet doubters. Maybe the 2020-21 Jazz will end up being remembered right along with the Hawks and Rockets and Bucks teams that were top seeds that fell short of the Finals. They play in a stacked conference with two teams led by players who have been to that mountaintop in a way they never have, capable of overpowering just about every other team. Health pending, the unfortunate reality is that nothing the Jazz do between now and the playoffs will change perception of most as to their stature as a “true” title contender.

So while it’s natural to look ahead, this is also a regular season to celebrate in the moment. This Jazz team dismantles opponents and does so with some historic shooting. We’ve seen teams shoot nearly 40 percent for a season and we’ve seen teams shoot 40-plus threes a night, but never together. They are an incredibly well constructed team that has gotten just the right combination of mining the free agent market for gems along with some development and Draft luck (or skill, depending on your outlook).

It’s natural to be skeptical of a team without one of the elite stars in the league, proven as such in the playoffs, but as someone who covered that 2014-15 Hawks team, let me tell you, it’s far more fun to embrace the moment and just believe. Because for as many words that will be spilled between now and the summer trying to parse whether this team is legit, none of them will really matter until we can see it in action. So enjoy the ride, and we’ll see how it ends later.