After putting up a 13-point first quarter in Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals on Monday after an already embarrassing showing two days earlier in Game 3 against the Los Angeles Clippers, it would be understandable if the Utah Jazz were concerned.
It would make sense for their confidence to be shaken and to wonder if they could come back from two ugly losses with the series now tied 2-2.
So, is that how the Jazz are feeling?
“Not at all,” Bojan Bogdanovic said after the Clippers beat the Jazz 118-104 on Monday night. “We’ve got to stay connected, stay together.”
The way the Jazz see it, there’s no reason to throw in the towel, and they have plenty of reasons to believe that they can still win this series. The Jazz believe that focusing on the negative aspects of the last two games only serves as a distraction from the positives that can be gleaned.
The first half of Game 4 was a clinic in how to exploit the Jazz’s weaknesses and of what not to do against a capable and talented Clippers team. The Jazz were down by as many as 29 points in the first half and went into halftime trailing by 24.
“We weren’t playing smart,” Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said. “We weren’t connected, and that showed with a 13-point first quarter. We were trying to attack, but we weren’t putting ourselves in situations where we could have success.”
But the Jazz are focused on what happened in the second half. Through the final 24 minutes of play, the Jazz outscored the Clippers 60-50. They made smarter plays, they made quicker reads and they didn’t settle for bad shots.
“I think the biggest thing is the way we played in the second half, looking at that part of the film and understanding that’s who we are, that’s what we do,” Donovan Mitchell said.
Mitchell went on to say that if you look at the two wins the Jazz have in this series, not even those are examples of the team at their best. They can play better and they’ve shown the type of team they can be. They just have to put it all together in a full game rather than just in one half.
Additionally, the Jazz don’t feel like consecutive wins by the Clippers is surprising or shifts the momentum into Los Angeles’ control.
“Now it’s on us to go out there and be aggressive, take really aggressive care of home court and go from there.” — Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell
“They did what they were supposed to do,” Bogdanovic said. “They won two games at home. Now it’s our turn to protect our home court.”
That was a sentiment shared across the board as the Jazz players spoke to reporters after the game.
“They won two games on their home floor. They took care of home court, so did we,” Mitchell said. “I know it may not feel or look that way, but that’s what they’re supposed to do. We did the same thing, so now it’s on us to go out there and be aggressive, take really aggressive care of home court and go from there.
“We were up 2-0, we felt like we could have got one here, we didn’t. We’ve got to understand that it’s 2-2 and it’s the best out of three at this point.”
What’s more is that the Jazz went through 72 regular season games competing to keep the No. 1 seed so that they would have an advantage should they be in the position they are in now.
“We played the regular season to have the home-court advantage to be to be able to represent our fans and our organization at home, and we’ve got that opportunity,” Joe Ingles said.
The Jazz and Clippers will play Game 5 at Vivint Arena on Wednesday, Game 6 on the road on Friday and then, if necessary, Game 7 will be at Vivint Arena on Sunday.