Experience
Last season the Jazz came so close to making the playoffs that they could practically taste it. Nevertheless, a late-season collapse that included crucial losses to the Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Clippers’ JV Team essentially doomed Utah’s chances. In that final stretch of the season, the Jazz’s youth and inexperience with playing meaningful games certainly shined through.
Jazz brass took clear notice of this and worked relentlessly this offseason to patch up that issue by adding three savvy and experienced veterans in George Hill, Joe Johnson and Boris Diaw. Each of those three have had a big impact on this team both on and off the court and their addition has most certainly paid its dividends and likely will in the playoffs as well.
Each of them brings an impressive postseason resume as Diaw has appeared in 108 playoff games, Joe Johnson has played 101 and George Hill has played in 75. Those are significant amounts, to be sure.
Jazz have added 284 gms of playoff experience to their roster with Hill, JJ, Diaw. Their guaranteed-salary guys have 12 combined.
— dan c. (@danclayt0n) July 5, 2016
Nevertheless, even with those three guys, the Jazz are still extremely light on playoff experience. After subtracting their playoff appearances from the Jazz’s total, this Utah team has just 32 games of playoff experience.
21 of those belong to Shelvin Mack where he was largely the third point guard option off the Atlanta bench and the other 12 games are divided evenly between Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors and Alec Burks who all played in Utah’s four-game sweep at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs in the 2012 NBA Playoffs.
And that’s a paltry figure compared to the likes of some of Utah’s potential first-round opponents such as the Los Angeles Clippers who have 673 playoff games as a team or the Memphis Grizzlies who have 403. Even when you add in the playoff experience of Utah’s aforementioned three veterans it still only brings their team total up to a much lower 317 games.
Therefore, as the Jazz will more than likely be facing a playoff squad that has them severely outmatched in terms of postseason experience, it will be interesting to keep tabs on how they hold up with the stakes at their highest.
The playoffs are a completely different animal from the regular season and Utah is going to be in for a big challenge as their overall youth and inexperience will be put to the test against some of the league’s most battle-hardened squads.