Utah Jazz: Assessing an unraveled team’s odds for postseason success

Conference Finals Teams

For part two of this study, I looked at all 40 teams in the past 20 years that made it to the Conference Finals but couldn’t get over the hump to the NBA Finals.

Once again, most of these teams were consistent and level-headed throughout the season and didn’t get too high or low during games that didn’t really matter in the long run. The most common “low point” for these teams was, again, a three game losing streak.

17 of the 40 teams had their longest losing streak at three games, and nine were good enough to limit their losing streak to two games at the most. As for the less than pretty teams in this group:

• 10 of the 40 teams went on a four game slide
• Two dropped five in a row, one dropped six, and one dropped seven

The two teams that had their losing streak hit five games were the 2017-18 Houston Rockets and 2011-12 Boston Celtics. Houston laid their giant egg of the season from December 20-29.

The Celtics actually had two separate five game skids, one happened in January and one happened in February, though it’s hard to fault them for those since that year was the lockout shortened year. The beginning of the season was in January, and they were fighting injuries.

It would be far-fetched to expect the Jazz to replicate these two teams though. Houston went on to win 65 games and get the top seed in the Western Conference, something the Jazz are mathematically out of reach to accomplish.

The Celtics nabbed the four-seed in the Eastern Conference, but got lucky as the top-seeded Bulls lost their superstar Derrick Rose to a torn ACL and lost in the first round. Instead they got to face the eight-seeded Philadelphia 76ers in the second round, a major blessing to them from the basketball gods.

Unless by some miracle the Lakers get knocked out of the first round this spring, I just can’t see the Jazz replicating either of these two teams.