The biggest dark horse of the season - Utah Jazz

Before the start of the season, many people predicted that the Jazz would make a big difference. The backcourt composed of the newly added Mike Conley and the rising star Donovan Mitchell and the "French Tower" Rudy Gobert were sitting in the penalty area. The Jazz have both talent and experience in the team. Qualification is included as one of the favorites to win this season.

However, with Conley's continued acclimatization and the team's stagnant record at the beginning of the season, many people began to question the Jazz's strong team label, believing that the Jazz's lack of superstar lineup is still unable to match the star combination of the two Los Angeles teams.

While many pundits and fans have begun to look down on the Jazz championship, the Jazz have won 10 straight games in the past few weeks, rushing to the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference.

But is the Jazz's winning streak short-lived or real?

The myth of bullying

Looking closely at the Jazz's opponents in this ten-game winning streak, except for the Clippers who defeated the championship favorite at the end of December, most of their opponents were bad teams with a winning percentage of less than 50%. In fact, during the ten-game winning streak, the average win rate of the Jazz opponents is only 40.3% , which also makes people wonder whether this wave of winning streaks has the suspicion of irrigation.

Expanding the sample size to the past 15 games, in the 14 games the Jazz won, all opponents were non-playoff-level teams, and the only one lost was the Miami Heat, the upper east powerhouse. No matter how you look at it, the Jazz's record over the past month doesn't seem to really reflect the team's true strength.

Although the Jazz have yet to beat the performance of the championship powerhouse, the ten-game winning streak is still commendable. In the past few games, the Jazz gradually found an offensive rhythm, and even found new available soldiers on the bench rotation.

Early in the season, coach Quin Snyder reduced Mitchell's possession time after the arrival of Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic, and greatly reduced Mitchell's offensive lethality. But during the ten-game winning streak, Conley was sidelined due to injury, helping Snyder to establish Mitchell's heavy responsibility as the lead. Over the past few weeks, Mitchell has both hit career highs in field goal percentage and assists despite a decrease in average shot attempts and seems to have found a good balance between offense and transmission.

In fact, in the 18 games Conley has missed this year, Mitchell has been the starting point guard as the offense's engine. While Mitchell has maintained a similar level in field goal attempts , he has improved his touches and time with the ball , and has made full use of his ability to shoot and cut on offense. Mitchell is not an off-ball shooter, and his shooting percentage from off-ball runs is only 37.1% . Forcing him to play the passive shooter position with Conley is one of the reasons why the Jazz's early season record is not as good as expected.

Furthermore, one of the biggest contributors to the Jazz's winning streak is newcomer Jordan Clarkson. When the Jazz recruited veteran Conley, on the one hand, they hoped to upgrade the position of point guard, on the other hand, they hoped to continue the offensive firepower of Mitchell when he was off the court. In the case of Conley's overall decline in data, not only did it not improve the point guard position that Ricky Rubio left, but it did not help the team to continue the offensive firepower brought by Mitchell. Clarkson's arrival gave the Jazz an offensive player who can create his own scoring opportunities and successfully injected a new energy into the bench.

Comparing Clarkson and Conley with Mitchell off the court shows that Clarkson is the sixth man scorer the Jazz need. Clarkson averaged 111.6 points when he was off the bench, but only 89.5 when he was with Conley. The team also lost after trading Clarkson. Clarkson's arrival helped the Jazz round out their offense and add a new force to their championship run.

Although the Jazz's ten-game winning streak is suspected of being bullied, the team gradually found its own winning formula while fighting Ruozhen. What's more, it's really not easy for the Jazz to not relax and maintain a good performance for such a long time. Every team will encounter a bad team, but not every team can easily win streak, which also reflects the team's strength. Toughness and depth.

Epilogue

The Jazz have shown signs of slow heat in the past few years, and this year is no surprise. After this winning streak, I am still optimistic about the Jazz maintaining the top three in the Western Conference, and I am even more optimistic that they can make a difference in the playoffs.

However, the key to everything is still in the hands of Mike Conley, and if Conley's instruction manual can be found, the Jazz will be more dangerous than in years past. On the other hand, the Jazz without Conley will still be Mitchell's one-man team, unable to continue to advance in the playoffs.

Readers who want to continue discussing NBA topics with me can find me at kwlee1022@gmail.com, and welcome to private message me on the Basketball Utopia Facebook fan page .