Mike Conley’s former team is the first stepping stone for a Jazz team hoping to win its first ever NBA championship.
There’s a new penthouse resident in the West. Thanks to LeBron James and Anthony Davis being on the shelf for a chunk of the season, the Clippers deferring to load management, and the Suns coming up short in the final few weeks of the regular season, Utah enters the 2021 NBA playoffs with the No.1 overall seed.
Well, wait a minute: That doesn’t give the Jazz the respect they deserve. Did they have a bit of help from the competition? Sure. Did they also use solid coaching, impeccable 3-point shooting, a bounce-back year by pick-and-roll savant Mike Conley, better health for Bojan Bogdanovic (as opposed to last fall), a bench breakout by Jordan Clarkson, stellar D from Rudy Gobert and more All-Stardom by Donovan Mitchell? Absolutely (and it was exhausting to write that sentence).
There are doubts about the Jazz being worthy of the top seed only because this unit has yet to travel deep in the postseason. Well, that won’t be the conversation here in the first round, where Utah is an understandably strong favorite against the mostly inexperienced Grizzlies. This series is shaping up to be a coming-out statement by the Jazz, who will play this round without feeling major urgency while bringing oodles of confidence; the pressure builds starting with the next round.
The Grizzlies do bring a level of intrigue and a bit of excitement in the swaggy Ja Morant, fresh from his impressive takedown of Steph Curry and the Warriors in the play-in game. Morant is an unconventional player who, despite his smallish size, will challenge bigger players at the rim and usually comes away successful. He’s the symbol and the face of a franchise that’s undergoing a gradual process designed to create a contender in a few years. In that sense, the Grizzlies are on schedule, and this series, the first taste of the playoffs since that process began, will serve to stamp their growth if nothing else.
Utah hasn’t had a look of a contender since the Karl Malone and John Stockton era. In order to even dream about copying that success, the path must start here in the first round, against a Memphis team that’s playing with house money. If this series goes six or more games, that’ll say something about the Grizzlies — and even more about the Jazz.
Three things to watch
1. Morant and Conley should be a delicious matchup. There’s an obvious angle here: Conley had a string of very good years in Memphis (his lone All-Star appearance, though, came this season with Utah) and is generally regarded as the finest point guard in franchise history. When Memphis chose to shake up the Grit-N-Grind team that had gotten old, Conley was sacrificed and Morant was soon discovered in the draft. What makes this more attractive is Conley, after a shaky first season in Utah, has returned to the level he saw in Memphis; he’s averaging 16 points and shooting 41 percent from deep. It’s Old School vs. New and it promises to be worth watching.
2. Jordan Clarkson gets all the Sixth Man love but Joe Ingles is just as solid. Actually, Ingles is the more efficient shooter off the bench, hitting 45 percent on 3s (to Clarkson’s 35) and 49 overall (to 43). Ingles also brings more playoff experience and arguably is more clutch. In addition, Ingles is a very underrated and clever passer who spots teammates in the paint. Remember when Ingles took down Russell Westbrook, Paul George, and the Thunder in the playoffs a few years ago with timely buckets? The Grizzlies better pay Ingles just as much respect, if not more, than the Kia Sixth Man of the Year favorite, or else.
3. The Grizzlies are still giving spoonfuls of playing time to Jaren Jackson Jr., who saw just 15 minutes in their overtime win against the Warriors (he was in foul trouble, but still). Jackson played only the final 11 regular season games after his off-season knee surgery and Memphis is placing more importance on his future than this series. Therefore, the Grizzlies need center Jonas Valanciunas to at least make Gobert work and overall will go mainly with a smaller lineup, with Kyle Anderson and rookie Desmond Bane getting run.
Number to know
17.6 — The Jazz were the only team that ranked in the top five in both 3-point percentage (38.9%, fourth) and the percentage of their shots that came from 3-point range (48.8%, first). They were also the only team that ranked in the top five in both opponent 3-point percentage (34.1%, second) and the (lowest) percentage of their opponent shots that came from 3-point range (34.8%, second). Put it together and the Jazz outscored their opponents by 17.6 points per game from 3-point range, the second biggest differential in the 43 seasons of the 3-point line and more than double that of any other team this season. Portland ranked second at +8.5 points per game.
The Grizzlies had the sixth biggest discrepancy from 3-point range, getting outscored by 5.1 points per game from beyond the arc. And in sweeping the regular season series, Utah outscored Memphis by 63 points (21 per game) on 3s. But two of the games were within five points in the last five minutes, in part because the Grizzlies outscored the Jazz by 10 points in the paint, 24 points from mid-range, and six points from the free throw line, with their 71 total free throw attempts being the most against the Jazz this season.
— John Schuhmann
The pick
The Jazz are a massively deep team and can go as many as nine players in the rotation. That’s a tremendous asset in the playoffs if only because they won’t be harmed by foul trouble or misfiring players. Quin Snyder will simply look further down the bench, which stretches to Provo. It also helps than Mitchell is well rested and healthy and no doubt anxious to make up for all the time he lost over the last few weeks. The Jazz are a tough matchup for the other top-shelf teams in the West and therefore will be next-level against Morant and the Grizzlies, who are taking baby steps as a playoff team. Jazz in 4.
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
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