Reliance on the Utah Jazz’s All-Star backcourt
The Jazz duo of Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell showed the world exactly why they were both named All-Stars this year alongside Utah big man Rudy Gobert.
Ja Morant put on a historic performance for the Memphis Grizzlies. Even so, the Jazz guards were able to counter him with their own barrage of scoring.
Despite having to leave Game 5 early with a hamstring injury, Conley averaged 17.4 points per game in the five bouts with his former team. On top of his scoring against Memphis, he also proved that he’s still a master at orchestrating the offense as he averaged a career playoff-high 8.6 assists per game.
While Mitchell was somewhat controversially forced to sit out Game 1 against the Grizzlies, which the Jazzmen lost, he looked to be 100 percent from Game 2 through the end of the series.
Mitchell averaged 28.5 points to go along with his 5.8 assists per game. He played as confident and aggressive as ever, never shying away from Dillon Brooks’ sturdy defense while often being the main reason that the versatile Memphis wing was racking up fouls.
Assuming that Conley is healthy to play from the get-go in the Western Conference Semifinals, he and Mitchell will both need to keep up this level of play for the Utah Jazz to advance to the franchise’s first Western Conference Finals since 2007.