The NBA regular season ends on Sunday and the playoffs are less than two weeks away. We’re right around the corner but there are still lingering questions, so I’ve opened up the the Utah Jazz mailbag for a final regular-season question-and-answer session.
The next time we do this, we’ll be talking postseason basketball.
There are always concerns that rust could be a factor any time a player misses extended time, but I wouldn’t start worrying about this for Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley just yet.
The first and most important reason not to be concerned is that the Jazz are not concerned, and if anyone should be it’s them. They still have a good shot at securing the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference even though they’ve been without two of their All-Stars through much of the home stretch of the season. If anything, that’s a confidence boost. And, it’s not as if Mitchell and Conley have been away from the team entirely. They have been engaged and communicating and on the sidelines.
While Mitchell has been ruled out for the rest of the regular season Conley could still come back before the regular season wraps up. But, even if neither of them played in any of the remaining regular-season games, they’ll have just under a week between the regular season ending and the beginning of the playoffs to get some run with the team. I know that practice is not the same as game speed but it still matters.
If this was last season I might be a little more concerned just because the team hadn’t been together as a whole group for as long, but this team knows how to play and plays well together.
“Healthy by playoff time is the most important thing — just healthy in general,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said last week. “If it works out where there’s a game that (Mitchell) is able to play, great. But, this year is a little different with the playoffs, there’s a little larger window. So you can get some of that even in a practice setting.”
If that’s where Snyder’s head is at, I think it’s fair for the rest of us to follow his lead.
If it comes down to these two teams, which it very well could, I think there are definitely reasons to look at the Los Angeles Lakers as a favorable matchup, but I think in the end the Jazz would prefer playing Golden State.
While the Warriors did just beat Jazz on Monday, there were a few things to consider in that loss. First, the Jazz were not at full strength and were still right in the game; they had a chance all the way up to the end. With Mitchell and Conley in the lineup it gives the Jazz more defensive options on the perimeter and a more well-rounded scoring front. The Jazz are just a better team with their normal starting lineup and I think they would end up being the better team through a seven-game series.
Stephen Curry will always be a threat to go off on a huge scoring performance, and Draymond Green is also a lot to deal with, but I think that if the Jazz are playing their full roster they have more weapons and can overwhelm the Warriors.
I think the Jazz also have the tools to beat the Lakers, but at this point there’s really no telling what version of Anthony Davis and LeBron James the Lakers are going to have in the first round, or if they’ll be able to play both of them. Injuries have plagued the defending champions’ two biggest stars and if you were going to tell me with certainty that they would be without one of those players in the first round, this would be a different conversation. But at this point, I wouldn’t want to bet against James, especially if he ends up coming into the first round healthy and well-rested.
With the NBA play-in tournament added to the equation, I think it would be foolish to try to test fate and drop down to a lower seed in an attempt to get a better matchup. There are no guarantees here if you’re the No. 1 or No. 2 seed, because even after the last game of the regular season concludes, the seventh and eighth seed could end up being any of the four teams that are in the play-in.
And, let’s not kid ourselves about the teams that are in the playoffs. No team is going to be an easy out. There’s not a single team out there that is looking forward to facing the Lakers, the Warriors, the Los Angeles Clippers, Chris Paul and the Phoenix Suns, Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets, Luka Doncic and the Mavericks, or Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers.
Sure, you’d love to see the L.A. teams knocked out before you have to face them and the Mavericks or Blazers would probably be easier to beat than some of the others listed, but there are not going to be easy outs in this postseason. The best thing to do is get the No. 1 seed, keep home-court advantage, and then play the cards as they are dealt.
Miye Oni is on a nonguaranteed contract through next season, but he’s already on the books so that’s not where the Jazz would have to make any tough decisions. You could sign Trent Forrest to a second two-way deal, and you can probably get Jarrell Brantley to stay on a minimum nonguaranteed deal like Oni.
Conley and Georges Niang are unrestricted free agents this offseason but the Jazz do have their rights so they can go over the cap to keep them. But those are the two deals that will require some negotiating. There’s no reason right now to think Niang and Conley don’t want to be here, but in order to stay somewhat flexible, or if there is another addition the Jazz want to go after, they’re going to want to have both players back on somewhat friendly deals. If either player is offered something bigger and better by another team, that could start to make decisions a little tough.
I promise that when the offseason comes, we’ll dig into this deeper.
My favorite part of the season has yet to come — playoffs, baby. I think that the play-in and the postseason are going to be incredibly competitive and exciting and this part of the year always feels like Christmas and birthdays all wrapped into one. I love the playoffs and can’t wait for them to kick off.
To the second question, I haven’t had Litza’s yet, but when I do, I’ll report back with my findings.
If you would like to have your question answered, you can send it to me at stodd@deseretnews.com with “mailbag” in the subject line, or you can send it to me via Twitter @NBASarah with the hashtag #UtahJazzMailbag.