The Downbeat #2071: Our Utah Jazz are in the Playoffs Edition!

The Utah Jazz are headed to the NBA playoffs! This Downbeat will be so much more fun to write than the previous five years where it was the last game of the season, exit interviews hadn’t happened yet and it was just a reminder of how long the off season is. Well, lucky for us our off season won’t be for quite a while!

Gordon Hayward is pretty excited about returning to the playoffs:

Go Gordon! Go Gordon! Go Gordon!

Go Rudy! Go Rudy! Go Rudy!

Well this didn't work:

We’ll be starting the playoffs on the road. There are lots of games we can look back on thinking, if we only had that back. Like losing by one to the Kings at home. Losing by 27 to the Timberwolves at home. Losing to OKC by one at home. That Dallas game, but you know, really any team can do that even, the Clippers, so it is what it is.

Here is the schedule

Steve Starks and Dennis Lindsey did a question and answer with Gordon Monson.

Its a great listen. A little shaky watch. Listen to Dennis Lindsey talk about the process it took to get the Jazz back to the playoffs, why he chose to work for the Utah Jazz, and his thoughts on this year’s team. Steve Starks shares about his role, his favorite Jazz players now and in the past and more.

I love that we have executives that are willing to do interviews and questions and answers like this. And you know Dennis Lindsey didn’t answer “No Comment”! I loved KOC but I love how open Dennis Lindsey is when he can be.

They are excited for the playoffs, we are excited for the playoffs! Yay playoffs!

We have talked about the wonderful podcast Lindsey did with Woj. I thought it would nice to revisit his thoughts on officiating, thanks to Moni. I also thought since we will be playing against the LA Clippers and you know the reputation they have with the refs. I do wonder if Lindsey’s comments will help, I hope so!

Thanks Moni for the transcript!

Eight. Dennis Lindsey on NBA officiating (Vertical podcast): It’s been a little bit of a philosophical debate that we’ve had with the management of the league, that in many ways, because we move bodies and we move the ball more than any other team once we enter the half court, it’s very difficult to call us on certain angles.

So, the [league’s] data does tell us at times when we’re grabbed, held, push and pulled — it’s about every third or fourth game — if it, that’s not appropriately called, we’ll suffer from what we call a high-discrepancy game, which we define as four or more missed calls either in our favor or our opponent’s favor…

Where we’re, we’ve moved av–as we’ve studied all this information, we’ve moved to really where Mark Cuban’s at, and, meaning that, the overall idea that we have more disagreements with the management of the officials than we do with the officials.

I personally believe we have the 60 best officials in the world…Where our concern comes in is how management chooses to either specifically or in this case not specifically educate the officials on particular datas. …

In many ways, what we’re asking is, is that, for the league to catch up with [the Jazz’s] style of play.

This has to be asked!

I am also curious, which series in the past do you think this series will be most like?

I am thinking maybe Denver 2010. Maybe because thats our most recent playoff series win. Denver was favored. They had home court. They beat us during the season 3-1. They were flashy and had an attitude about them.

Then again, we had the best player on the court. Jerry Sloan was able to coach circles around Adrian Dantley, who was coaching in place of George Karl. We had a lot going for us.

I don’t know what exactly we have going for us, I think Rudy can make an impact that no one on the Clippers can. I will be anxious to see how George Hill handles Chris Paul. I am excited for a healthy Derrick Favors to guard Blake Griffin. I hope to see confident, all-star Hayward. This is the first playoffs for Quin Snyder as a head coach, for this group of players together and for some of our players. I don’t know though, I have a good feeling and I think the Jazz win the series!