Downbeat #1767: 2 Weeks in, Jazz 2nd in West

It's a beautiful day everyone! Birds are chirping, 7-11 Slurpee-owners are slurping, and the Jazz happen to be where they were always destined to be:

At the top of the division standings!

(Don't act like you're not impressed)

Furthermore why not look at the bigger picture that is the west, to see where the Jazz stack up:

Okay, so the Jazz may not be on pace for an 82-0 season like the defending champs are still, but we do have the league's best defense and have been feasting on this opening cakewalk of a schedule thus far.

This is where the Jazz's defensive efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions) currently sits within the league:

I'm curious to see how this defense holds up once we start facing more contenders, but it's quite reassuring to see this team pick up right where it left off the 2nd half of last season.

Now for a few individual accolades, they all happen to also be defense-related:

Way to go Gobert and Favors, way to be 2 of the hardest working players in this league! We are all looking forward to the noise this team is going to make in years to come and hopefully starting with a few playoff wins to conclude this season!

Moving on, anyone know what happened 5 years ago today? It happened to be one of the most memorable games in the last decade. Feels a little strange that it's already been this long yet it also feels like it could have happened even longer ago as Gordon Hayward's 6 minutes in this game is the only connection to the current roster.

I present to you all, 5 years later, some highlights of the Miracle in Miami:

Millsap had 46 points off of 28 shots and more than doubled his career 3 pointers made in a 24-second span.

One of the greatest Jazz games of all time!

Our Defense #1 DefRtg #1 Opp PTS #1 Opp ASTS #1 Opp FGA #1 Opp FGM #1 Opp 3PA #2 Opp FG% #2 BLKS pic.twitter.com/rcoj5sDqUV

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) November 8, 2015

This team is good, potentially great. I am genuinely excited to watch Jazz basketball again. The Jazz are just money on defense, and when in those stretches where they have their offense going, there are few things more beautiful to watch for a Jazz fan!

I mean here are some highlights of the Jazz dismantling one of the teams supposedly better than us:

Here are the Jazz games for the rest of the month:

Tuesday, Nov 10th @ Cavaliers
Thursday, Nov 12th @ Heat
Friday, Nov 13th @ Magic
Sunday, Nov 15th @ Hawks
Wednesday, Nov 18th vs. Raptors
Friday, Nov 20th @ Mavericks
Monday, Nov 23rd vs. Thunder
Wednesday, Nov 25th @ Clippers
Saturday, Nov 28th vs. Pelicans
Monday, Nov 30th vs. Warriors

Wow, the Jazz are going to start to get truly tested this month with 8 of those 10 games being against likely playoff teams. I'll be happy if the Jazz get half of them and finish the month at 9-7.

What do you all at SLC Dunk think?