DETROIT — We’ve been down this road before.
The Jazz are on a five-game win streak and are headed home after sweeping a four-game road trip. They have gained some footing in the Western Conference standings and are feeling great about the progress that they’ve made in the last week and a half.
“We’ve been here before. I don’t think any of us are getting too excited.” — Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell
But, the Jazz won 19 of 21 games before falling into a four-game rut, then went into the All-Star break on a four-game win streak only to return from the break looking complacent, unfocused and suffering another losing streak.
The Jazz are hoping their days of getting satisfied with their position and letting that satisfaction creep into their collective psyche are behind them and Donovan Mitchell is leading the charge.
After a win in Detroit on Saturday night, Mitchell made it clear that he and the rest of the team understand their position, but also understand that nothing is guaranteed in the NBA.
“Obviously, we’re moving up [in the standings] and whatnot, but we’ve been here before,” he said. “I don’t think any of us are getting too excited. I’ve been saying this for awhile — we started behind the 8-ball since All-Star, losing [four] straight, so now we’re playing catch-up.”
It’s not just about trying to keep the right attitude and approach. The Jazz are trying to learn from their mistakes.
Staving off complacency, keeping the right level of focus, and maintaining a sense of urgency for every game are not tangible things and they are all goals that are easier said than attained.
Mitchell has been repeating those same mantras for days in a possible attempt, as the leader of this Jazz team, to get out in front of the situation and motivate Utah to not let history repeat itself.
“We’ve got to be able to stay here,” Mitchell said. “We can’t just go on a five-game winning streak and then be like, ‘We’re here. We’re back.’ We’ve got to continue to play hard. We’ve got a great Raptors team coming in at home on Monday.”
Not only do the Jazz have a test on Monday with the East’s second-seeded Toronto Raptors coming to Salt Lake City, eight of the nine games that follow that contest are against Western Conference teams that are either considered locks for the playoffs or are still contending for a postseason spot.
With the defense looking better over the last four games than it has in weeks, the Jazz will look to rely on their abilities on that side of the ball as the tough games start to mount.
Veteran Mike Conley, who has seemed to turn a corner and is playing his best basketball of the season, is also preaching effort and defensive awareness as the Jazz look to build on the progress shown during the road trip.
“I just think it’s effort right now. We’re picking up the ball a little bit earlier, we’re being a little bit more aggressive on screens and I think everybody is just kind of feeding off of each other’s energy,” Conley said. “When we’re playing that hard and that aggressive while communicating we can beat some really good teams and have some good stretches of basketball. I think we’re learning that — that we can be that good. We’ve just got to continue to do it.”
The NBA can be a fickle beast and the schedule is often not forgiving, especially for a team in any sort of turmoil. It was just 16 days ago that Rudy Gobert and the rest of the Jazz locker room wondered who they were and what happened to their defensive identity.
After the Jazz closed out the Pistons on the second night of a back-to-back, fatigued from a long week on the road, Gobert had a noticeably different tone and was looking forward to taking the Jazz’s renewed sense of self back to Vivint Smart Home Arena.
“The last four games I feel like the focus was on the defensive end,” Gobert said after Saturday’s win. “We had some stretches when we lost that, but they were short stretches... I really like the mindset that we have. That’s the mindset that we need; keep woking and getting better.”