What do the Utah Jazz need to do to win this series?
In order to win this series, Utah needs to do two things and they may sound very simple: knock down their shots and be themselves. In terms of knocking down their shots, the Jazz were the fourth highest scoring team in the NBA during the regular season and ranked first in the league in three-pointers made per game with about 16.7 made threes per game.
They may only play with a 9-man rotation, but 7 of those guys can knock down three-point shots and 6 of them shot 38% or better from three-point land during the regular season. Utah “lives and dies” by the three-point shot and given their “3-and-D” mentality that they play with, it is hard to beat them when they are clicking on the offensive-end of the court.
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Besides knocking down their shots, the second key to success for the Jazz not just in this series but for the rest of the playoffs is to just be themselves. What I mean by this is to not let other teams dictate the pace of play and to not let their opponents get to them and change their style of play.
The Jazz were able to clinch the 1-seed in the Western Conference, the best record in the NBA and home court advantage throughout the entire playoffs, NBA Finals included, by being a team that prides themselves on taking and making three-point shots in large volume. Offensively, this needs to remain the goal of the Jazz and on defense, they cannot let teams try to out-muscle them and get them in foul trouble.
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Utah may not be the biggest team and they may not be a team with a lot of “flashy” names on their roster, but everybody on this team has a role and they play their role perfectly. They are probably the most “sound” team left in the entire playoffs because they just go out there on the court, do their job and never look bothered by anything.
Like every NBA team, they do complain about calls here and there, but in the end, they always move on and focus on the goal at hand. Nothing seems to get to this team, which is why they should be considered the favorites to win the Western Conference right now. They handled the Grizzlies with ease and given the Clippers’ struggles as of late, they could be able to wrap up this series fairly quickly as well if they get off to a fast start.
