Let’s get right to the point and say what most of you are thinking:
The Jazz had better make the most of this opportunity.
To put it another way: They better not blow it.
Not that there’s any pressure.
The Jazz finished the regular season with the NBA’s best record, 52-20, and when is the last time that happened? Well, never, although they tied for the best record with Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in 1998.
That’s no small feat for a small-market team to pull off, especially in the era of the Super Teams, which have dominated the league for a decade, ever since LeBron James took his talents to Miami (let’s define Super Team as any team that wasn’t grown organically — one that was arranged by colluding players).
James’ Miami team — Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Ray Allen and James — appeared in four straight NBA Finals. They didn’t win seven titles, as James gushed when the team was first introduced, but they did win two.
Then James’ Super Cleveland Cavaliers — Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and James — appeared in four straight Finals and won two of them.
The Warriors appeared in five straight NBA Finals, three of them as a Super (Duper) Team — composed of Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green — and won three championships (two as a Super Team).
Then, during last year’s bubble season, the Lakers’ union that Anthony Davis and James wheedled out of the league was made and they won a championship.
It hasn’t been a fair fight in the NBA for a decade, but through some quirk in the universe the Super Teams have not dominated this season. The Lakers, with James and Davis missing a combined 61 games because of injuries, limped to a seventh-place finish in the Western Conference, which means they’ll be forced to compete in a quick four-team play-in tournament to reach the playoffs.
The Brooklyn Nets, this year’s Super (Duper) Team, composed of Irving, Durant, James Harden and DeAndre Jordan, finished second in the Eastern Conference with a 48-24 record. They’ve been working on their team chemistry; Harden joined the team in the 10th game, and Durant, who missed all of last season while recovering from an injury, has played in only 35 games this season.
The Clippers’ half-Super Team, featuring the union of Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, finished only fourth in the Western Conference. Those players also missed a combined 42 games.
Injuries were the big story in this year’s NBA, perhaps a result of the quick turnaround from the end of last season to the start of this season less than two months later.
Anyway, you get the feeling that all of the above are sleeping giants who could awaken any time. For the sake of parity and fairness, let’s hope not. For their part, the Lakers are 19-8 when both James and Davis are in the lineup. They will meet the Warriors in the play-in tournament.
Injuries and developing chemistry on the Super Teams has opened the door for the Jazz, who had some late-season injuries of their own — Donovan Mitchell missed 19 games and Michael Conley 21 — but still managed to amass a 52-20 record, one game better than the Phoenix Suns. A collection of nobodies — Jazz, Suns and Nuggets — finished 1-2-3 in the Western Conference.
The Jazz carry some of the same doubts that BYU’s football team carried last season while winning all but one game and climbing high into the national polls. How good are they really?
At least on paper they are the best team in the league. During one stretch in January and February they won 20 of 21 games; they’ve had winning streaks of 11, nine and nine games. Their longest losing streak of the season is two games, which they did on only four occasions spread out over the course of the season.
The Jazz still don’t know who they will meet in the opening round of the playoffs. The winner of the Lakers-Warriors game will play the No. 2-seeded Suns. The loser of the Lakers-Warriors game will play the winner of the Grizzlies-Spurs game, and the winner of that game will meet Utah.
For the Jazz, much will depend on how quickly Mitchell can return to the court and how quickly Conley can return to form. Mitchell missed the last 16 games of the season and Conley missed nine of the last 11. Mitchell had averaged 31 points per game over the previous 15 games when he was injured.
The Jazz will need their star guards to make the most of this rare opportunity of having the NBA’s best record and the home-court advantage that comes with it.