Utah Jazz mailbag: Best moments of the season

There’s no doubt that Utah Jazz’s season ended in disappointing fashion, long before the Jazz or any of their fans wanted it to.

Though there are sour feelings now, like regret, grief and sadness, there are things to be proud and happy about.

This Jazz season was remarkable and filled with so many great moments. I put the call out to Jazz fans to send me the most memorable moments of the season, and they came through, as they always do.

Earlier in the week, I put together some of the more personal responses, but now it’s time to get down to some highlight moments on and off the court.

Donovan Mitchell scored 36 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out five assists on Jan. 21 against the New Orleans Pelicans. The Jazz blew open the lead and Quin Snyder emptied the bench in the final minutes. It was not only one of the Jazz’s patented team wins — with Mike Conley scoring 20, Jordan Clarkson adding 19, Rudy Gobert adding an easy double-double to the box score, and Bojan Bogdanovic chipping in 16 points — but it was also one of Mitchell’s most well-rounded games.

Leave it to Shaquille O’Neal to spoil a party. Instead of praising Mitchell on his performance and the Jazz’s victory in Mitchell’s walk-off interview, the “Inside the NBA” on TNT analyst decided to tell Mitchell, on live television, that he didn’t think Mitchell had what it took to get to the next level.

Mitchell replied with a simple and apt, “Aight.”

Perhaps no other moment encapsulated the mood and intention of this Jazz team more than that moment. The Jazz were doubted all year, and even as they were becoming the winningest team in the league they were consistently under-appreciated and overlooked.

Through it all the Jazz tuned out the criticism and focused on what they knew they could do. On that Thursday night against the Pelicans the Jazz were in the midst of a league best winning streak, Mitchell became the fastest player in NBA history to hit 600 3-pointers, the Jazz would go on to field three All-Stars in Conley, Mitchell and Gobert, and they would earn the No. 1 seed in a stacked Wester Conference.

“Aight” became a battle cry for Jazz fans, and the perfect response to being underestimated.

The Jazz weren’t just great on the court. They did some really cool stuff off the court, including giving out a full four-year college scholarship for every Jazz win this season to an underrepresented student of color.

The first 30 scholarship recipients were notified that they’d been chosen to receive the scholarship by a Jazz player and the videos were heartwarming to say the least.

In total the Jazz tallied 61 wins through the regular season and the playoffs, meaning 61 incredibly deserving students will have a little less to worry about as they embark on their college careers.

There were two frontrunners this season for Sixth Man of the Year, Jordan Clarkson and Joe Ingles.

As the ultimate teammate, Ingles was part of an elaborate surprise that saw the two being interviewed on TNT and Ingles presenting Clarkson with the award. It was a touching moment that once again pointed to the unselfishness of this Jazz team and how much they all supported one another throughout the season.

Many people responded to my mailbag prompt by bringing up the fact that the Jazz had the 6MoY, the Defensive Player of the Year, three All-Stars and a Coach of the Year candidate as being highlights of the season.

It’s hard after a tough loss and the way that the season ended to reflect on how incredible this Jazz team was, but it was really full of a lot of memories that Jazz fans will hold dear.

Fans loved a lot of on court moments this season, maybe the one that was brought up the most as a favorite was the night that Bojan Bogdanovic scored a career-high 48 points against the Denver Nuggets at Vivint Arena.

The crowd erupted into chants of “Bo-gey, Bo-gey,” multiple times throughout the game and then gave him a standing ovation during his walk-off interview.

Bogdanovic noted how special it was to have a career night in front of the Jazz home crowd and thanked them for making the night so memorable for him. What’s not to love about that?

The Jazz had to finish out the home stretch of the season without two of it’s All-Stars, Conley and Mitchell.

Still, they were able to maintain the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and best record in the league, marking the first time the Jazz have been sole owners of the winningest record in a single season.

The Jazz played incredible team basketball and it was epitomized when the team stepped up without it’s All-Star backcourt through the most grueling and competitive portion of the regular season calendar.

There were also a ton of singular plays that people mentioned. Multiple times Mitchell completed an insane wrap-around or crosscourt pass to Bogdanovic or Royce O’Neale for an open 3-pointer, Gobert blocking Ja Morant’s dunk during the first round of the playoffs, Gobert blocking Marcus Morris at the end of Game 1 of the second round against the Los Angeles Clippers and Clarkson scoring 41 against the Warriors and 40 against the Sixers.

The Jazz had incredible shooting performances all season long and will go down as one of the best 3-point shooting teams in NBA history. They finished the season with multiple win streaks that topped the NBA for the season, they blew out teams on a regular basis and became a regular season team that could flip on a switch at any moment and just bury the opposition.

There are a lot of good things to remember about the 2020-21 season and what the Jazz were able to accomplish. Unfortunately only one team can be the last one standing and it wasn’t the Jazz’s year.

On to the next one.

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.