Four reasons why the Utah Jazz will make the playoffs in 2018

An Exceptional System

Piggybacking off the fact that Quin Snyder has proven himself as one of the most adaptable and formidable coaches in the league, he’s also been able to put into place a system that not only perfectly fits his personnel but ought to also continue to challenge opposing teams. Make no mistake about it, Hayward was the focal point of Utah’s offense and their best individual playmaker last season, however the Jazz found success by sharing the ball and featuring an equal-opportunity system.

With Hayward now out of the mix, a handful of other guys will simply have to step up and make the most out those equal opportunities. Although the Jazz don’t have one single guy who can be expected to shoulder the offensive load night in and night out, they have nearly a dozen capable guys who can get the job done and any one of them could very well explode on a given night.

In a recent article from Michael Pina of Vice Sports, he compared the 2017-18 Utah Jazz to the 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks who were a starless team that still went on to earn 60 wins. Pina pointed out that Atlanta’s well-balanced nature made them nearly impossible to game plan against, and this year’s edition of the Utah Jazz should be quite similar. With so many capable players on both the first and second unit, planning a strategy to defeat them will be difficult and likely vary from night to night.

The Jazz have also put a heavy focus on pick-and-roll offense and it just so happens that they now have two of the best in the business for such a style of play in Ricky Rubio and Rudy Gobert. Seeing those two in action should be a treat for fans to behold and could very well produce some surprisingly effective results.

Furthermore, the Utah Jazz system and mantra focus on something that has unfortunately become a lost art for many NBA teams around the league – defense. In reality, their focus is more heavily placed on the defensive end than on the offensive. And given that the Jazz added defensive-minded guys such as Ricky Rubio, Thabo Sefolosha, Donovan Mitchell and Ekpe Udoh, they ought to be even tougher to beat on that end of the floor.

The Jazz offense certainly has some question marks surrounding it, but defensively, they ought to be able to beat teams up to the degree where they win even in some low scoring outings. The Jazz may not play in a way that’s exactly conventional in today’s NBA, but it should be sufficiently fitting to their personnel that it will help them stay extremely competitive all season long.