Despite the Odds, Utah Jazz Continue to Impress

Despite overwhelming odds due to the onslaught of injuries, the Utah Jazz continue to compete and have a legitimate chance to push their way up the Western Conference standings.

Three starters and a Sixth Man of the Year candidate down. Two rookies in the starting lineup. An 8 of 27 shooting performance from the bench. A double-digit lead surrendered to a top ten defensive team in sixth place in the conference. Not exactly a recipe for success.

And yet, the Utah Jazz were able to find a way to win, pulling out a 92-87 overtime victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday night.

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It was the second straight game that the shorthanded Jazz, who are missing key starters Rudy Gobert, Derrick Favors, and of course Dante Exum as well as the team’s third leading scorer Alec Burks, have been able to pull off a victory. While Thursday’s victory over the Portland Trail Blazers was impressive, the win over the Memphis Grizzlies who have been a consistent playoff force is even more surprising given the Jazz’s current injury situation. The Jazz now move to seventh place in the Western Conference ahead of the Houston Rockets who they will face in two of their next three games.

And what important match-ups those games will be. While it has long been speculated that the eighth seed in the playoffs is essentially the Jazz’s ceiling this season, the slumping and inconsistent Rockets are seemingly opening up an opportunity for the Jazz. Two early wins against the Rockets would help the Jazz inch closer to breaking .500 and would be a great start to sealing the edge in potential seeding tiebreakers. Utah has struggled against Houston recently, losing three of four contests last season and two of three the season prior. Nevertheless, with the shorthanded Jazz finding ways to win and the Rockets reeling, this year could be a great opportunity to turn that tide.

The Jazz were able to defeat the Blazers thanks to a huge night from Trey Burke who went 12 of 19 from the field. Similarly against the Grizzlies, the Jazz were victorious due to a huge individual effort on the part of Rodney Hood who put in a career high 32 points on 10 of 20 shooting.

What’s potentially exciting about this isn’t just that Hood seems to be snapping out of his slump or that any one player is having big nights for the Jazz, but rather that once this team is healthy and clicking, there’s no telling what success they might have. For example, on Hood’s big night against Memphis, Hayward was relatively quiet offensively and Burke, who had lit it up the game before, shot just 3 of 13 from the field.

There have been several instances all season where one or two Jazz players have thrived while one or two others have struggled. While it’s unrealistic to expect four players to all put up 20 plus points on any given night, if each of the Jazz’s key players can begin to consistently put forth efficient efforts, it will dramatically increase their chances of success.

And that isn’t even considering that Favors, Gobert, and Burks’ absences won’t last forever. Once these three are back and as they can also contribute efficiently, the Jazz will be even great force. Also, it’s important to put this season so far in perspective. Last season at the start of 2015, the Jazz were 11-21 which is significantly worse than their current 15-17 record. Yet it wasn’t long after that 11-21 start that the Jazz were able to go on their big second half of the season run and put together a respectable finish.

With a much better starting point this time around and a much weaker Western Conference, if the Jazz can go on a similar run this year, they’ll find themselves in a great situation. The Jazz also still boast the league’s fifth-best defense which can only improve once Favors and Gobert return to the court.

While it might be a little too early to start making playoff assumptions, it can’t be ignored that the Jazz are now just a game and a half behind the sixth place Grizzlies and three games behind fifth place Dallas. The return of injured players and a strong second half surge would definitely put the Jazz within striking distance of these teams.

Now to drop back to reality. Despite two impressive wins with key starters sidelined, the Jazz still are a squad that has yet to win three straight games this season (they’ll have the opportunity to do that on Monday night against the Rockets). They’re still the team that has looked brilliant at times and downright awful at others, including against less worthy opponents. The apparent truth is that every bit of potential is there for the Jazz, but the consistent focus and execution have to be there as well. The Jazz are a good team, but they have yet to be consistently good. Quin Snyder said it best after Utah’s overtime win against Memphis.

“We played with passion. You go down the list, I don’t think there’s one guy that didn’t give every part of himself to the game.” – Quin Snyder following the victory over Memphis

“We played with passion,” Snyder said. “You go down the list, I don’t think there’s one guy that didn’t give every part of himself to the game. It’s hard to do that all the time. But we sure did it tonight.”

It may be “hard to do that all the time.” But this resilient and badly battered Jazz team has shown they still have what it takes to win. That passion and energy need to be replicated every game by every player. As that happens across the board from leading scorer Gordon Hayward down to recent D-League call-up Tibor Pleiss, the Jazz will truly make big strides towards becoming a competitor in this league and will put themselves in a situation to move up the Western Conference standings.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com/stats