DETROIT — Coming to you live from Motor City, I’m once again here to answer your questions for another edition of the Sunday Jazz Mailbag.
The Utah Jazz are absolutely still in play for not only the third but also the second seed in the Western Conference.
Technically the top seed, currently held by the Los Angeles Lakers (48-13) is not out of the question, but it would take a steep drop-off and a big win streak from a Western team to knock the Lakers out of the No. 1 spot.
The Jazz ended Saturday night at fourth in the West, one game behind the Denver Nuggets and 2.5 games behind the Los Angeles Clippers, with the Rockets trailing the Jazz by just 1.5 games.
With the Jazz playing better recently and with 19 games left after Saturday’s contest in Detroit, the goal is to stay in the 2-4 area and get home-court advantage going into the playoffs. Of course, staying close to the Rockets means even more of a chance of once again meeting them in the postseason, and nobody wants that.
Sort of along the same lines, I received this email and thought it would be good to elaborate.
Q: Hi Sarah. Am I getting this right? In the standings, the Jazz have almost no chance of either climbing to No. 1 or falling to No. 8. Home court would be nice, but it doesn’t matter that much who they play other than the Lakers. Seems like what matters is finding cohesion, getting into the flow together. What do you think?
Michael
A: I do not like to play with absolutes like that unless the answer is truly absolute.
As I said above, the top seed is a long shot, but it’s not like there is no way of getting there. In the same vein, it is completely still possible for the Jazz to bottom out and miss the playoffs. I don’t personally think it’s likely, but it is statistically possible.
Michael, I think you’re absolutely right about your last point but don’t think that getting home court and finding cohesion are mutually exclusive. Gelling and going into the postseason with consistency is the top priority for the Jazz right now but as long as that continues and progresses they should be able to rack up wins to stay within the top four in the West.
Here’s the thing about haters: They’re louder than everyone else most of the time.
Whether it’s celebrities, athletes or even newspaper reporters like yours truly, the people who appreciate you and enjoy your work are not on Twitter or in comment sections regularly telling you that they like what you do. The detractors and haters LOVE to be heard though and sound off at every chance they get. A wise person once told me, “People love sending hate mail, but no one sends love mail.”
Conley knows that he has a lot of support from his teammates and fans but just like anyone else they like to shut the haters up just as much as anyone else.
The Jazz went into Saturday night tied for 18th in the league in turnovers committed, averaging 15 per game. Now, 18 might sound bad but that doesn’t exactly show the whole picture. The difference between the best team in the league at taking care of the ball, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Jazz is just 2.7 turnovers per game. That is not a huge difference at all and just because you give up the least amount of turnovers doesn’t mean that you are a better team.
The bad part has actually been the Jazz’s recent drop in transition defense which has allowed 17.1 opponent points per game off of turnovers. Even during the four-game win streak that led up to the Jazz game in Detroit on Saturday, the Jazz were allowing 17.5 points per game on turnovers. That’s where they need to tighten up and that’s just about getting back, getting in front of the ball, and stopping easy buckets.
I’m not even going to try and pretend like I’ve done the homework here. Like most people, I start paying attention to college hoops when the NCAA Tournament starts. I promise you that I do a huge amount of research and that I don’t just trust highlight reels of college players, but I’m not there yet.
Draft coverage will be coming.
The term “superstar” is so subjective and I really hate conversations like the one that Perkins possibly started here. It’s always going to be difficult to be considered a superstar on a national stage for a small-market player unless that team and those players have already won something.
That’s honestly probably the biggest reason that most would consider Gobert and Mitchell not in the “superstar” category. Until they make it to the Western Conference Finals or beyond, they are going to have people talking about what they don’t have as a team rather than what they do have.
I have covered some of the best players of this generation and in my opinion Gobert and Mitchell haven’t yet reached their full potential and that alone says to me that they are going to be superstars for a long time in this league. For some, they might already be; for others, they’ll see it eventually.
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 #SundayJazzMailBag.
Every Sunday morning a mailbag article will be published at deseret.com answering many of the submitted questions, and I save some special ones specifically for the newsletter subscribers.