Utah Jazz Downbeat #2080: One more win!

Late Downbeat, but man, there’s so much coming at this site soon. Let’s enjoy this run, Utah Jazz fans!

The Utah Jazz have a chance of closing out the first round tonight, at home, against the Los Angeles Clippers. And honestly? They should get it done.

Also, James has been on FIRE.

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It’s not just the Utah Jazz players and coaches that other people are #Take(ing)Note of.

The Orlando Magic nearly hired both Utah Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey and coach Quin Snyder. Their work in Utah provides a blueprint for the Magic.

Imagine just for a moment if, back in 2012, when the Orlando Magic were interviewing for a new general manager, they had selected San Antonio Spurs assistant general manager Dennis Lindsey.

Lindsey made the list of finalists for the role. But eventually lost out to Rob Hennigan, who prevailed over him and the other candidate, Jeff Bower.

As we now know, that turned out to be a terrible decision. Not least because while Hennigan crashed and burned over the subsequent five years, Lindsey has very quietly used that time to go about putting the Utah Jazz in a position to compete.

Utah currently has a 3-2 lead over the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the playoffs thanks to a well-constructed roster pieced together patiently and intelligently by Lindsey, who took the Jazz job in 2012.

S.W. Guest, Orlando Magic Daily, 2017

Check it all out here! And feel good about it!

PODCAST TIME with Zach Lowe - you’ve probably already listened to it. But it’s got Kevin Arnovitz, get these ESPN guys before they’re all fired!

Also, I get it. People are just going to love Chris Paul no matter what.

An excerpt:

So it was no surprise when Paul reacted with something between indignation and outrage when asked by a reporter whether the Clippers would be able to claim Game 6 in Utah on Friday to force a Game 7. “What?” Paul replied, forcing a clarification. “What you think? I’m on the team. What you want me to say? ‘No, it’s over.’ Come on, man. You’ve been doing this long enough.”

Paul’s exasperated tone conveyed his true message: I’m the one who has been doing this long enough. I’ve been carrying playoff teams, posting monster stat lines, playing until the buzzer, and being consumed by defeats for long enough that I don’t need to answer questions about my confidence in a do-or-die game. Clearly, this wasn’t about the reporter’s experience, but his own.

“Everybody in here is laughing for a reason,” Paul concluded, with nervous giggles spreading around the press conference room. “Come on, man.”

The scene was eerily reminiscent of Game 1’s aftermath, when Clippers coach Doc Rivers took a reporter to task for questioning his late-game strategy following a buzzer-beating defeat. Like Rivers, Paul had managed to cleanly win the podium battle while the series war slipped further out of LA’s control.

Through five extraordinarily tense and tight games, it’s becoming clear that the Clippers have ready retorts for misguided questions from the media, but fewer answers for the Jazz, now that Griffin isn’t around to dictate the match-ups. “It’s no secret, our backs are against the wall,” Paul admitted.

Ben Golliver, Sports Illustrated, 2017

Just gotta make sure that the Jazz win tonight. You all can keep writing about how great he is when he’s on vacation - but you’re not.

Do you follow non-NCAA non-NBA hoops? This is a pretty interesting global development.

Also, Andrei Kirilenko would have killed it under Quin Snyder. Think Draymond Green, but better.

I don’t listen to Hip-hop . . . but yeah. This has to be a good omen.

#TakeNote