Utah Jazz will rock the final 20, but a playoff series win will be tough

The Utah Jazz are primed to go on a major run to close out the 2018-19 regular season. The playoffs, however, could be a different story entirely.

Over the last few days, the Utah Jazz have arguably put together as awesome a two-game stretch as an NBA team can possibly muster.

First, they beat the then West-leading Denver Nuggets on the road, at altitude and on the wrong end of a back-to-back. That seemingly herculean feat was followed in short order by an epic comeback win over the squad with the Association’s best record, the Milwaukee Bucks.

Donovan Mitchell scored a career-high 46 in the game and electrified the crowd at Vivint Smart Home Arena. And there’s likely a whole lot of good mojo still on tap in Jazzland.

Over their final 20 games, the Jazz will play 18 against teams with worse records than their own. 15 of those will come against likely non-playoff teams, i.e. the guys that have already (or are on the verge of) making the move to punt on the remainder of the season as they seek Zion (Williamson).

Given that slate, it’s entirely feasible that Utah could win 15 or more games to finish the 2018-19 regular season and end up with 50-plus wins. The latest FiveThirtyEight CARMELO projections have the Jazz finishing 51-31, while Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report has the team at 50-32 and a top-four seed.

Not half bad for a squad that was multiple games under .500 around mid-season, huh?

So, when the 2019 NBA Playoffs tip-off in April, the Jazz should enter the fray as one of the league’s hottest teams. But if fans think Mitchell and Co. will be able to kick back and ride the wave to a third-straight first-round playoff series win, they could be in for a rude awakening.

The Jazz may be climbing the Western Conference standings, but regardless of where they finish in the top eight, they’ll find themselves in a dogfight for postseason survival.

As it stands, the Jazz can really finish anywhere from second to sixth in the conference seeding; given the cupcake close to the their regular season schedule, we’ll just assume that a drop to Nos. 7 or 8 is extremely unlikely. It also seems unlikely that the San Antonio Spurs can get back to the middle of the playoff pack despite an easy schedule themselves, or that the Nuggets will drop significantly in light of a difficult one.

That means that the Jazz could/will likely play one of the Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers triumvirate in Round 1.

It’s hard to feel super confident about any of those match-ups.

Despite their early season struggles, the Rockets have looked pretty strong for a while now. As relates to the Jazz, they made the blue, green and gold crew look silly at times during last year’s playoffs and, just last month, they beat the Jazz by 27 points in Salt Lake City. Turns out, this James Harden guy is pretty good.

Meanwhile, the Thunder have won all three of their games against the Jazz this season and would have an extra measure of motivation in a playoff series after the Jazz beat them in Round 1 last year. Also — that Paul George guy…he’s pretty good, too.

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As for the Blazers, the Jazz were dominant in two early year match-ups, but dropped their last two games to PDX, most recently by 27 points in January. As ever, the backcourt combo of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum gives the Jazz D major problems, and Jusuf Nurkic seems to have a knack for getting into Rudy Gobert‘s head.

I’ve never been high on the Lillard-era Blazers, but they’ve always been an incredibly tough opponent for the Jazz.

That’s three possible playoff partners for Utah and three potential first-round exits as a result of the pairings.

I’m not trying to rain on any parades here. And if the last week has shown us anything, it’s that the Jazz can play with the best in the Association, even under difficult circumstances.

Clearly, though, it’s going to take more than a late-season hot streak to propel the Jazz band to victory in their first best-of-seven series. There’s still a lot of work left to be done in Jazzland, even if things are looking super groovy at the moment.

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