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The Utah Jazz pulled off the seemingly impossible with a win against an undermanned team. Tonight the Utah Jazz easily handled the lowly Cleveland Cavaliers who were only playing 7 players.
Rational Reaction #1 - Rudy Gobert is vital to the Jazz success this season
There has been a lot of talk about Rudy Gobert recently. His level of play has been down the last month but it has seemed more mental than physical. Perhaps it’s that he’s hoping to get a contract finalized and he’s not getting the points he wants. Maybe he’s frustrated at the overall defensive effort from others on the team. Maybe there’s a chemistry issue we aren’t seeing.
Whatever it is, the effort level tonight for Gobert was better than it has been in weeks. He had a vintage Rudy Gobert night scoring 20 points on 8/9 shooting with 5 blocks. Gobert can dominate the game if he wants to and it was nice to see that desire again. Even if it is against the lowly Cavs.
Rational Reaction #2 - Bojan Bogdanovic’s shooting is one of Utah’s best weapons
When Bojan Bogdanovic is hitting threes the Jazz offense gets to another level. Just by being on the floor Bogdanovic creates room to work for Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley to work. And when he’s knocking his shots down he makes it near impossible to guard the Jazz.
Tonight Bogdanovic showed that he might be getting out of his recent slump. Tonight he scored 28 points on 52% shooting while going 5/10 from three. Any night that Bogdanovic takes 10 threes is a victory because of his fantastic percentages.
Again, this is all with a grain of salt because the Jazz just beat one of the worst teams in the league, but seeing shots fall like that will hopefully help Bogdanovic stay hot when the Jazz schedule gets more difficult.
Overreaction #1 - The Jazz are back on track
There’s just no way to know. The Cavs are truly awful and you just can’t take a lot from this game. Despite only having 7 active players Cleveland still managed to score 113 points on the Jazz defense. A lot of that was in crunch time, but you still want to see that go down.
If there was one takeaway, Utah’s body language looked better. Gobert’s effort level was high on both ends of the floor. And with how this season has gone the last month, that’s probably the most important thing.
Underreaction #2 - Utah needs Mike Conley to look like he did tonight.
It’s beyond important that Mike Conley find cohesion with the Jazz and recently it’s starting to look like he may have found a groove. Conley has started to look more and more comfortable with the team. Tonight he was making nice reads and hitting shots.
Conley was 6/12 from the field and scored 15 points 6 assists. It’s hard to take too much from this tonight but there are multiple games in a row now that Conley is showing signs of fitting in. It’s good to see because the Jazz will need him come playoff time.