Celebrate? For Jazz, making playoffs is just part of the job

SALT LAKE CITY — Making the playoffs again wasn't necessarily a goal for the Utah Jazz, per se.

This team considered returning to the postseason for the third straight spring part of its job and responsibility.

"But the way you accomplish it is not to count," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said, referring to figuring out how many wins a team needs to get in. "The way to accomplish it is to be a good team."

Snyder said that "to get better" was the approach as the Jazz got closer and closer to mathematically clinching a spot, which Utah did Thursday thanks to Sacramento's loss to New Orleans.

Now as fans and media focus on what seed the Jazz will finish in — and which one might give them the best/worst advantage to advance — Snyder said the team's approach will remain the same.

"There's a lot of factors that go into that," Snyder said. "And every time you try to figure something out, who you're going to play, where you're going to finish, who you match up with well, who you don't, that's for you guys to think about. I'll think about it when the time comes.

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"Right now," he added, "my focus — our team's focus — is on being as good as we can be when it comes time to play in the playoffs."

It will be interesting, though, considering the Jazz realistically could end up anywhere between third and eighth in the Western Conference standings. They're currently in the No. 5 spot, which would pit them against No. 4 Houston if the postseason began now.

"It's really a unique year in that sense," Snyder said of the wild, wild West playoff jockeying. "You want to play well. There's obviously, when you've clinched, you're thinking about your team being healthy. Those considerations at the end of the year come into play."