NBA: The Utah Jazz are the hottest team in the league: The 180-degree turnaround

The Utah Jazz had already been written off, but Rudy Gobert and Co. all at once the hottest team in the league. What is behind the upswing – and can Utah keep its form?

It wasn’t too long ago that the jazz season was already over – or so it seemed. Utah had on 23. In the new year, this was the seventh defeat of only three victories so far. The result was a 19-28 record, the playoffs were actually out of reach.

The Trade Deadline was already on the horizon at that time and it was anticipated that both Rodney Hood and Derrick Favors would soon be able to play elsewhere. In Hood’s case this has actually happened in the meantime: The somewhat polarizing Swingman made his debut for the Cavaliers on Sunday. Favors, however, has remained – and the situation of jazz has turned around 180 degrees in the last three weeks.

The comeback victory against San Antonio Spurs was already the tenth victory in a row for Jazz. A similarly long series was last seen in Utah in February 2010, shortly before the former franchise player Deron Williams was traded to New Jersey. However, the results are by no means the only thing that has changed. Ever since the Atlanta game, jazz has been unrecognizable.

“Even if we were very disappointed on that day in Atlanta, there will always be games where you lay an egg,”coach Quin Snyder recently told the Salt Lake Tribune,”The question is simply what kind of reaction you’re showing. And our team has responded well,” You could say that: the jazz have gotten on top of each other. The game against the pistons, two days after the Atlanta bankruptcy, was identified as a turning point.

On the one hand this was due to the fact that the Jazz were still three minutes before the end with 9 points behind, before they made it into the overtime and won there. On the other hand, it was symbolic that Ricky Rubio, who hadn’t really made it to the team before, suffered a cut in the eye and finished the game before he was sewn. According to several players, this had a big effect on team chemistry.

“It clicked for us in the Detroit game, and since then we’ve had a run,”Favors described, who, contrary to rumours, is still playing in Utah. Rightly enough: Jazz have won last time in Toronto and San Antonio among others, the Warriors (!) have been beaten with 30 points (!) difference of the bottom, over the last ten games the Jazz have achieved a net rating of 15.0, clearly ahead of the Raptors (13.5) the best of the league in this period.

Two names in particular symbolize the turnaround of jazz – although of course they are not the only ones responsible for it. On the one hand, there’s Rubio, who may have played the best ball of his career since the Pistons game, before he injured himself on the hip against Charlotte. The Spaniard suddenly discovered his inner sniper (13/24 3FG over eight games) and not only played impressive defenses, but was also very offensively dangerous – and his 34-point 11 assists game against the Spurs stood out in particular.

On the other hand, Rudy Gobert has to be mentioned. The Frenchman has already missed 26 matches with injuries this season, on 19. But on January 1st he returned and since then the Jazz has lost only two games. Although his numbers are impressive (13.6 points, 10.4 rebounds, 2.5 blocks), they tell only half the story as often.

Gobert’s presence and intelligence in defense not only have a massive effect on his opponents, but on everyone involved in the court. Every opponent’s wing has to respect Goberts Rim-Protection – and each of his opponents knows that he can exert extreme pressure on the man as long as French Rejection is still patrolling behind him and can eliminate any mistakes. Since Goberts return, only Milwaukee (99.4) and Toronto (100.0) have a better defensive rating than Jazz (100.1).

But also offensively Gobert has a higher value than one might think in view of his throwing diet (dunks, putbacks, a few hooks). Gobert is one of the NBA’s more uncompromising roll men and is now able to make the right decision as a register, even in Traffic. It is so long and yet dynamic that only a few bigs are really able to keep it out of the basket. However, if opposing teams send help, Gobert is now really good at finding the open-minded man.

Being the open-minded man in Utah is a very pleasant thing at the moment. The attraction of Gobert and the penetration of Rubio and rookie sensation Donovan Mitchell in particular give rise to a lot of space on the grand piano, which has recently been of particular benefit to Joe Ingles.

The Australian scored a sensational 57.1 percent of his threesome (!) during the winning streak, topping his own career high several times in a row. But Ingles is not the only one who feels at home in this jazz opener. Hood’s newly acquired Jae Crowder also rejoiced after his first game for Utah how nice it was to “have fun again” and “play in one system”.

A side blow against the Cavs, clearly, but also quite seriously meant. Utah plays an average of almost 40 passes more per game than Cleveland, where LeBron James is known to hold the ball a lot. James also plays the ball – and is a sensational passport – but there are also players who don’t get along so well with it if they only get the ball as an executor. Crowder is by no means Kyle Korver. It is quite possible that he will be able to cope better in Utah in the long term.

GM Dennis Lindsey certainly hoped for this with the trade. Where there was speculation before the deadline that Utah would rather go on a pick hunt with Hood (and favors), Crowder is instead someone to help win games in the here and now.

“Our goal has been the playoffs from the very beginning, and this has remained so,”Ingles recently made it clear. And now it’s no longer a spinning job. Utah is currently only 1.5 games behind the eighth-placed Pelicans, who, as we all know, will have to make do without DeMarcus Cousins for the rest of the season. In the “second third” of the Western Conference, no other team is as formally strong as Jazz.

Of course, however, they still have to confirm this. Jazz has a run at the moment where everything feels like it’s falling into place, but that’s not going to go on forever. Last but not least, there is always a question mark behind Gobert’s health. Utah can compensate for a lot, but probably not another long-term failure of the most important player.

Either way, the jazz season already deserves recognition. There are plenty of teams that would have long ago put the sand in their heads, and there are enough fans and/or experts who would have recommended this to them – the main thing being high draft picks. The Jazz have decided against pulling veterans out of circulation, even though nobody in Utah would have expected such a drastic turnaround.

Even if this should not be permanent: the future of jazz doesn’t look so bad. Other teams are fighting over the dream of a franchise player – Utah already has two of them in Gobert and Mitchell. The fact that Gordon Hayward decided not to stay in summer has almost been forgotten by the salt lake.