Now that the NBA’s regular season is over and the Utah Jazz have secured the top seed in the Western Conference, the question becomes what their path to a championship might look like.
Here’s a round-by-round look at what the Jazz could face on their quest to their first title in franchise history.
First round
Already life is a little bit tricky for Utah, as it won’t know clear until Friday who it will even face in the first round. Some reward for getting the top seed.
That, of course, is because of the play-in tournament the NBA instituted last year, which will see the seventh-10th-place teams in each conference vie for the seventh and eighth seeds, with the Jazz facing the No. 8 seed in the first round.
The Los Angeles Lakers are seventh, the Golden State Warriors are eighth, the Memphis Grizzlies are ninth and the San Antonio Spurs are 10th. There certainly appears to be a pretty big drop-off between those first two teams and the last two, so Utah is surely hoping it can face one of them in the first round.
Most likely, though, it’ll come down to the Lakers and Warriors. Despite recent injuries to LeBron James and Anthony Davis leaving some uncertainty in Los Angeles, on paper Golden State would be the easier foe, even as Stephen Curry has been playing at an MVP-like level. The Warriors just probably don’t have enough around Curry to beat the Jazz four times in a series.
Second round
Even though this is a round later, it’s already easier to project who Utah could face in the Western Conference semifinals should it advance past the first round. The LA Clippers are the No. 4 seed and the Dallas Mavericks are the No. 5 seed, and the Jazz would play the winner of their first-round series.
For a good while at the end of the regular season, it appeared the Clippers would end up as the 3 seed, but they pulled the tank job to end all tank jobs the last two games of the regular season to fall to the No. 4 seed, resting all of their good players so they could lose to the awful Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Mavericks have a great player in Luka Doncic and they can be dangerous when he, Kristaps Porzingis and the rest of the supporting cast get going, but it’s hard to envision that happening four times in a series against the Clippers.
The Clippers would present a big challenge for the Jazz if both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George get going, along with their role players. Even though the Denver Nuggets have played incredibly well since star guard Jamal Murray tore his ACL on April 12, they probably would have been an easier opponent had they ended up as the No. 4 seed instead of as the No. 3.
Third round
There might not really be a point in projecting out this far, as it’s nearly impossible to know which other Western Conference team will still be around at this point, assuming the Jazz also are. That seems to be the case this year even more than other years, as there’s great parity in the conference.
That said, we know it will probably be down to the No. 2 seed Phoenix Suns, Nuggets, No. 6 seed Portland Trail Blazers and Lakers.
All of them would present different challenges. The Suns’ backcourt of Chris Paul and Devin Booker is great, Nuggets center Nikola Jokic will almost surely win league MVP, Blazers and former Weber State star Damian Lillard is incredible and the aforementioned James and Davis are great when healthy.
The X-factor in all of this may well end up being James’ and Davis’ health. Even though the Lakers are the lowest-seeded team remaining in this exercise, they are the most difficult to match up against if the two stars are healthy.
NBA Finals
If the Jazz can make it through the Western Conference gauntlet, they’d probably face either the Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn Nets or Milwaukee Bucks from the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals, as there is a significant drop-off in the East after those three.
As much as Utah fans don’t like Philadelphia, the Sixers have been really good this year. The Nets, like the Lakers, have had to deal with injuries to their stars, but they’re absolutely stacked with talent. The Bucks will be looking to break through after falling short of expectations the past few seasons.
There’s a long, long way to go before we get to that point, though.