‘Uh oh’: Bojan Bogdanovic and Jazz send strong message to rest of league with 11th consecutive win

SALT LAKE CITY – Donovan Mitchell, absent from Friday’s game while in the league’s concussion protocol, tweeted something during the third quarter that looked terribly like a warning to the rest of the NBA.

“Uh oh Bojan !!!” Mitchell said, with some eye emojis added.

As if the league needed another reason to fear Jazz.

Utah won their 11th straight game with a resounding 120-101 victory over Dallas at Vivint Arena on Friday. Ten of the 11 wins came in double digits.

According to Cleaning the Glass, which removes wasted time and uplifts, Utah has the league’s best net score, second best defense and third best offense; and the Jazz are No. 1 overall by a country mile over the long winning streak – a stretch that is now more than halfway through the season.

All statistics indicate that the Jazz are currently the best team in the league, and the eye test confirmed that on Friday.

Utah had a 25-point lead after the end of the first quarter, hitting eight threes in the period and keeping Dallas just 3 out of 5 shots. Utah led with no less than 30 points in the game and six players. have reached double the numbers. And all without their top scorer (Mitchell) or Derrick Favors.

Utah is currently a freight train leveling everything in its path. And this train has just received more fuel on Friday thanks to Bojan Bogdanovic.

What happens when Utah’s top marksman joins the 3-point wave? Mitchell might have put it better: “Oh oh.”

Bogdanovic, who had hit just 27 percent in three in the last four games, scored 32 points on 7 of 11 shots from behind the arc. He had 17 points in the third quarter alone as Utah (15-4) remained atop the league standings.

“We had a discussion this morning,” Bogdnaovic said. “They all want me to shoot more, to be aggressive, but sometimes it’s hard when you’re having a hard time; when you can’t see the ball go through the net.”

Bogdanovic shot just a single 3-pointer in Utah’s win over Dallas on Wednesday. For head coach Quin Snyder and the rest of the Jazz, that number was unacceptable. Yes, he’s struggled at times this year, but he’s just had the best season of his career. And the only way to get back to that level is to keep shooting.

“The way he plays and the way we play is perfectly suited,” Snyder said. “He hasn’t played for so long. And he’s just coming back to where he’s been, and it takes a long time sometimes.

“The biggest thing I want him to do is keep attacking, keep shooting, keep competing.”

For Bogdanovic, Friday’s game started the same way many others have done this season: a few missed shots. Snyder drew coins to involve him, but he couldn’t convert. While the Jazz took a huge lead at the start, Bogdanovic went 1 for 3 deep.

With Utah’s love affair with the three-way ball, Snyder has made it clear that no matter how many three misses, everyone needs to keep shooting. This is how Utah has played nine straight games with at least 15 lines (one on the league record) and hit 20 three times in one game seven times this season (more than in franchise history). at the beginning of the year).

It’s simple: if you’re open, shoot the ball.

With the Mavericks trying to close the paint a bit more after Rudy Gobert lost 29 points on Wednesday (Gobert still had 17 points and 12 rebounds in Friday’s win), that meant less pressure on the perimeter, and it meant that Bogdanovic was open. In the third, he didn’t hesitate, connecting on his four 3-point attempts.

With each stroke, the confidence seemed to grow. His decisions were quicker, his release quicker – he looked like the Bogdanovic Jazz fans he met last season.

“Tonight he was himself, and that makes us a lot better when he’s aggressive like that,” said Mike Conley, who has 22 points and nine assists.

After winning 11 straight games averaging 15.6 points, some teams must be wondering how much better can the Jazz get?

And that whole victory helped Bogdanovic deal with a slower-than-expected start.

“I would be really angry if I play the way I play now and we lose, but we win. The team are playing very well,” he said. “So nobody cares about their own stats and / or percentage or whatever you’re looking for. So it’s great for me that we win even though I’m fighting right now.”

He didn’t wrestle on Friday. It could be “uh oh” for the rest of the league.