![]() Utah can’t be so reliant on Mitchell as to stall out in another long series. ![]() Utah’s most recent playoff run never really gave Mitchell the chance to try when he finally hit the wall in Game 7 in the first round against Denver, scoring just 22 points in 43 minutes, it felt as if his relative crash was owed more to scoring himself to exhaustion in the first six games (in which he averaged an incredible 38.7 points) than any strategic shift on the part of the Nuggets. It’s quite another to crack specialized, evolving coverages in series after series. ![]() It’s one thing to attack and dish and lead a team to a top-10 finish on offense, as Mitchell did last regular season. Yet even the best in that particular mold have been stumped at times by the puzzle box of playoff defense. The weight of that has historically fallen on Mitchell, as it often does with any dazzling lead guard who can think on his feet. How far the Jazz go in the postseason will depend primarily on their ability to process the challenges in front of them. Utah’s hope of breaking through to the West finals for the first time since 2007 begins here: Hone their collective problem solving Not one for Mitchell or the Jazz to answer to, but for those of us watching them to mull over and mark as they go, in gauging what it might take to topple the Lakers or Clippers. We could take that as reason to say, in our deepest bass, that they don’t have what it takes, or we could try to understand what, if anything, still separates them from the best teams in their conference. Shaq was grasping at that in his own sort of ham-fisted way, but the season is more interesting if we take it as a chance for every team to explain itself. We’ll learn what aspects of their performance were real and which were merely suggestive. We’ll all know, in the end, what it meant that the Jazz had the best record in the West and a top-four net rating at this stage in the season. The NBA’s Youngest Team Is Also One of Its Deepest ![]() A final verdict will be pulled from a larger, more complicated body of work. The games will show whether Utah can win at the highest levels of the league. But Mitchell and the Jazz don’t have to prove anything to Shaq. What do you have to say about that?” Mitchell answered confidently and diplomatically, considering the question-was it even a question?-carried only the weight of the hot air that made it. “I said tonight that you are one of my favorite players, but you don’t have what it takes to get to the next level,” Shaq blustered last month at Mitchell as he ignored another sound win by the Jazz, their seventh straight in what would be an 11-game win streak. ![]() On its most superficial level, that vetting might look like Shaquille O’Neal bludgeoning Donovan Mitchell with his half-formed takes on live television. The reward for those lucky enough to actually be in the running is a monthslong vetting process, inexact and often inelegant, to determine whether a good team has the survival instincts to outlast an entire conference. Reality is more selective even in a boom year, only a handful of teams have a nontrivial chance of winning it all, leaving somewhere around three-quarters of the league to twist about in their shorted ambitions. Any NBA player can say their team will be vying for the title this season, and an implausible number of them will. Contending for a championship is a burden of proof. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |