Would the Utah Jazz be advantaged if NBA season finishes?

In a hypothetical setting where the NBA finishes its season and crowns a champion, would the Utah Jazz have any advantages as opposed to a normal postseason?

These are confusing times for any person in the world, much less the die hard fans of the Utah Jazz.

In what was supposed to be a breakthrough season where the team could look a little more convincing in the second round of the playoffs and maybe advance into the conference finals, we are instead staring at the possibility of a cancelled NBA season.

The decision regarding Rudy Gobert and his eligibility for the supermax extension will be much harder for Jazz brass to make given that there might be no closure for this season. The Jazz don’t know for sure if Gobert can carry the Jazz farther than the second round of the playoffs.

It certainly doesn’t help either party’s case with Gobert and Mitchell’s differences becoming much more publicized than anyone would have liked. Are the Jazz comfortable committing so much of their future to a man who sometimes clashes with his star teammate?

As for the present and what is happening now though, there’s a possibility the Jazz are set up to go farther in the playoffs than they originally would have in a normal season.

If the regular season and playoffs would have carried on as planned in April, May, and June, then my feeling is the Utah Jazz wouldn’t have made it out of the second round.

Yes, they did win 19 out of 21 games in December and January, but that large winning stretch has a big asterisk next to it due to the level of competition they faced. For the most part they were just beating up on bad teams.

The defense and morale was looking awful in February and early March, a point in the season where most of Quin Snyder’s teams tend to turn it on for the playoffs.

Since January 1st, the Jazz have logged the 18th best defense in the league (according to NBA.com), which simply isn’t good enough for a team that has Rudy Gobert anchoring the paint.

Just when we thought they were about to turn the corner, with a Bojan Bogdanovic buzzer-beating game winner on the road for instance, the Jazz have tended to drop multiple games in a row. Not just any games, but winnable games where the opponent isn’t at full strength.

This identity crisis could not have come at a worse time, with several Western Conference rivals starting to round into peak playoff form. The Oklahoma City Thunder for example, have the sixth best net rating in the league since January 20th.

The Houston Rockets have finally figured out how to integrate Russell Westbrook, and he’s averaging 29.9 points and 8.4 boards per game since the trade deadline.

The Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Clippers were slipping further and further out of reach for the Jazz to surpass in the standings, especially when Utah dropped inner-division games to Denver (twice) and Portland (once) in the same two week period.

It was inevitable in my mind that if the Utah Jazz landed the fourth or fifth seed, that they would’ve taken six or seven games to win the first round series and been made quick work of the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round.

But now that basketball has been put on hold for two months now, I believe the extra time to re-group will help the Utah Jazz if the NBA decides to finish its season.

Mike Conley, who was struggling in a Jazz uniform at first, has had the luxury of his own indoor basketball court and gym at his home in Ohio to workout in during the quarantine days. He looked like he was in excellent shape during ESPN’s televised H-O-R-S-E tournament.

Rudy Gobert has been posting on his Instagram story videos of him boxing and hitting the weights with his personal trainer.

Bojan Bogdanovic posted on his Instagram story last week a video of him driving down Utah’s I-15 freeway, indicating that he has returned to Utah after taking some time to see family in Croatia during the initial days of the NBA’s hiatus.

The NBA has recently approved the re-opening of practice facilities in accordance with local and state guidelines. It was reported that several Jazz players were able to get back to the Zion’s Bank Basketball Center and work with selected assistant coaches.

On top of all of this, the team chemistry seems to be repairing itself with time.

Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are no longer giving each other the silent treatment, Quin Snyder started the “Quarantine Cookbook” challenge to engage the team, and has been leading the way with doing drills and exercises over zoom call.

If anything, this long hiatus may turn out to be a much-needed, extended version, All-Star break 2.0 for the Utah Jazz. We saw how poorly they executed after the real All-Star break in February, so let’s hope that if the NBA resumes this summer that the Jazz will make the most of their long break off from the action.

In order for the league to retain all of its revenue from the TV companies, they need to play 70 regular season games. That would leave six “warm-up” games for the Jazz to get back into form and maybe even catch the Denver Nuggets in the standings if they’re really lucky.

The Nuggets have a very tough schedule to complete their 70 games, which includes the Lakers, Clippers, and Raptors.

As for the Jazz, they have six games left to hit their 70 game mark. The double-header with the Lakers will be a big challenge, but the games against the Timberwolves, Grizzlies, and Pelicans are more forgiving.

Even if the Jazz don’t end up catching the Nuggets in this hypothetical finish to the NBA regular season, they will still get a good look at the Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers, who figure to be very likely playoff opponents.

Once the playoffs start, a seven game series in the early rounds isn’t practical given the time restraint we are facing. Five game series have been discussed, which would allow the Jazz to have fresher legs for the second round, whether they face the Lakers or Clippers.

What would make Utah the biggest threat to one of the L.A teams however is a single elimination tournament, similar to the NCAA’s March Madness. If the Lakers or Clippers had to face the Jazz in a best of seven game series, the better team almost always comes out on top.

However, for a single game elimination, whatever team performs the best for that one game takes the cake.

If the favorite, no matter how heavily favored they are, slacks off for a single quarter, half, or even end up on the wrong side of a three minute run, it can be the difference between a Final Four appearance or a first round upset for the said team.

In other words, what I’m saying is the Jazz may be the NBA’s Cinderella team of the 2020 abbreviated playoffs.

It also doesn’t hurt that Utah has several players with experience of playing deep into the summer. Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles, and Bojan Bogdanovic have all played for their respective home countries in the summertime, so this isn’t a new game to them.

Neither is it to Donovan Mitchell, who competed in last year’s FIBA tournament.

Furthermore, this specific Jazz team has a better winning percentage on the road than previous iterations. The Jazz are 20-13 on the road this season. They were 21-20 last season and 20-21 the season before.

If the NBA season resumes at all, it will all have to be done in one vicinity such as Las Vegas, in a setting where the teams aren’t travelling all over the country and contracting germs.

This Jazz team seems to do fine away from home, and their most recent road trip were they went an undefeated 4-0, their team chemistry was even better when they were forced to spend more time together.

Mike Conley’s tendency to peak at the right time has been well-documented here at The J-Notes, and in general everyone is ready to get back on the court and prove that the Utah Jazz needn’t be overlooked in terms of Western Conference powerhouses.

The Jazz have yet to be the best version of themselves this season, and there’s still a good chance we never get to see that if the NBA cancels its season after all. But if it chooses to resume and finish, it should be an exciting one for fans of the Utah Jazz.