Utah Jazz and Donovan Mitchell find their new level among the NBA’s elite

When the Utah Jazz reconvened for training camp in December, they had had three months to reflect on the end of the previous season: with Mike Conley’s potential to win 3 points against the Denver Nuggets.

Over the course of those three months, the Jazz thought over and over again of that shot that negated, the 3-1 lead they had blown in that series, for failing to make it out of the first round of the playoffs. of the Western Conference for a second. straight season. And they came back for the start of this campaign determined to make it a little different this time around.

“I really feel like we came back this year with a specific goal,” Utah center Rudy Gobert said. “I really feel like we have a chip on our shoulders, and we need it if we’re going to do what we want to do this year.”

After their last win on Tuesday night, a 122-108 decision over the visiting Boston Celtics, the Jazz are now among the NBA’s top 20-5s this season and have won 16 of their last 17 games.

And unlike the other teams that float around them at the top of the NBA ecosystem – the Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Philadelphia 76ers – Utah doesn’t have a true superstar on its roster. Instead, what has carried Jazz to this point for a third of the season is an ensemble cast that works in perfect harmony.

The result is a team that performs as well as any other in the league and runs through its opponents every night.

“Anytime you see some sort of team molding itself for the players and the coaches, it’s gratifying,” jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “When you have a team that collectively tries to play a certain way and commits to it, I think that’s what we have.”

Part of Jazz’s engagement comes from the end of last season. The entire 2019-20 campaign, frankly, was a challenge for Utah. The team expected to take a step forward last year after negotiating for Conley, only for him to struggle to adjust to playing for a team other than the Memphis Grizzlies for the first 12 years of his career. Then, the Jazz added Jordan Clarkson to boost his score off the bench over the season – to lose starting forward Bojan Bogdanovic for team time in the Florida bubble due to wrist surgery.

And all of this, of course, is laughable compared to the fact that Utah was at the center of the league which shut down last March for several months after the team’s two-star Gobert and Donovan Mitchell had tested positive for COVID-19.

But rather than all of that – plus Utah’s heartbreaking loss to Denver – causing the Jazz to break up, it instead sent them into the offseason determined to create something better.

“I think, you know, the biggest thing that happened was just our motivation during the offseason,” Mitchell said. “Guys are coming. I look at Royce [O’Neale]. People don’t watch Royce because we don’t play on TV, but you watch Royce, and he’s come in the best shape of his career this year. The determination in this direction. You see the product on the floor, but I think the most important thing is what you see on the floor.

“He and I went to Miami and worked three or four weeks in a row. The things I saw him do, I didn’t see him do in his four years. Not to say he didn’t. not working hard, but he took it to another level. “

“I think that’s where we saw the difference. We’ve seen the work ethic take another leap forward, ”said Mitchell.

What has helped the Jazz is that, in a season where so much is pending for so many teams, Utah knows exactly what it is and what it wants to be.

After his first growing pains last season, Conley – who is currently with a hamstring injury – performed better in the bubble, and he’s been outstanding to start this season. Bogdanovic has returned from his wrist surgery and is starting to get back into shape. Joe Ingles shoots high career percentages across the board. And Clarkson is currently the fugitive leader to win the league’s sixth man of the year award. Meanwhile, the only prominent player Utah added during the offseason – big man Derrick Favors – had spent the vast majority of his first nine seasons in Utah before being distributed to the New Zealand Pelicans. Orleans during the last offseason, leaving him extremely familiar with what it was. Jazz would like him to do.

And, of course, the team continued to play a great game of their stars. Gobert remains the league’s top defensive player, anchoring a unit of Jazz which, despite adding more offensive players in recent years, still sits third in the NBA. Mitchell, on the other hand, came in on Tuesday with a career-high 41.6% on 3 points – and that was before going 6 to 13 from row 3 as part of his record 36 points.

Despite Mitchell’s shooting exploits, it was telling after the game that what he, Snyder and Gobert had all talked about instead was Mitchell’s decision-making: Playing point guard for injured Conley, he had nine assists decisive and only two turnovers in 36 minutes.

“Decision-making,” Gobert said, when asked where Mitchell’s biggest improvement has been this season. “He is really able to understand the tempo of the game and find his teammates.

“I think he got better every year, but this year is really the year he’s advanced – and when he does that the team takes it to another level.”

The Jazz know what level they want to reach this season. It was 13 years since Utah last reached the Western Conference Finals, when Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer led them there in 2008 and lost to the Lakers. It was 23 years since Utah last reached the NBA Finals, when John Stockton and Karl Malone lost to the Chicago Bulls for a second straight season.

Time will tell if Utah has the capacity to reach that level, although the numbers at least give them a fighting chance. Utah is the only team in the league in the top five for offensive and defensive efficiency. The only others in the top 10 of the two categories? The Lakers and the Bucks. And while questions will still remain about whether the Jazz will struggle to slow down teams that can pull Gobert away from the rim, Utah’s additional punch on the offensive – the Jazz leads the NBA with 17 3 points per game – gives them a balance they didn’t have before.

And for those unsure of the height of Utah’s ceiling, the Jazz will have plenty of opportunities over the coming weeks to make their point. Starting with Tuesday’s win over Boston, the Jazz have played eight of nine games against some of the league’s elite teams: the Celtics, Bucks, Miami Heat (twice), Sixers, Lakers and Clippers (twice).

Ultimately, however, the Jazz don’t care what happens over the next two weeks. Instead, it’s about being ready for what lies ahead – and making sure they don’t have the same bitter taste in their mouths at the end of this season as they do. had when leaving Orlando in September.

“I think the most important thing is to just focus on what we’re doing,” Mitchell said. “This is the first game of a big scope that we have to come, and we just have to focus on the little details. We have teams [scheduled] who have top players, extensive playoff experience, and we just have to go out there and do what we’re doing.

“It’s not like we’re saying this is a milestone for us. … We aren’t playing to be ready by February … we are playing to be ready for [July]. This is where we need to have our best product, and these are good tests for us. “