The Utah Jazz failed in the Conference Semifinals in five games at the Houston Rockets. But the clear series should not hide the fact that the franchise from the salt lake played a strong season. SPOX looks at the situation of jazz and gives an outlook.
After the Jazz OKC had faced unsolvable problems in the first round and (relatively) surprisingly kicked them out of the playoffs, they now had to face the Houston Rockets. They even stole the home advantage from the best team of the Regular Season in game 2, but the Rockets proved to be too strong and secured the next three matches in a row.
The Jazz had to do without Starting Point Guard Ricky Rubio, who had injured his thigh in the last game of the OKC series and did not make a comeback despite several attempts.
The focus was even more on rookie Donovan Mitchell, who now had to move up to the point guard position as the team’s top scorer. Royce O’Neale moved into the Starting Five primarily because of his good defense for Rubio, but offensively the Swingman took on a much more passive role than the Spaniard, so that de facto Mitchell and Joe Ingles were mostly the only real ball handlers of the Starting Five.
Mitchell did not play such an outstanding role as he did against OKC when he lost 28.5 points at 46.2 percent. Against Houston’s strong defense, the 21-year-old came out of the field with 19.4 points at only 36 percent and 25 percent from the triple line. After all, he raised his assist cut to 6.0, but he was not as experienced as the experienced floor general Rubio.
The other Jazz didn’t manage to give Mitchell the necessary relief. Utah presented the Rockets with some defensive challenges, but they were unable to stop the superstar duo of James Harden and Chris Paul, especially as they lost Backup-Guard and Harden defender Dante Exum during the series due to another injury.
Page 1: What happened?
Page 2: Why did the dreaded Jazz Defense against Houston not work?
Page 3: Why wasn’t Donovan Mitchell so successful against the Rockets?
Page 4: How is the overall jazz season to be evaluated?
Page 5: What are the Jazz in the Offseason?