Utah Jazz Downbeat #2081: Jazz moving on’

The Utah Jazz are moving on. The Los Angeles Clippers are probably breaking up. And the Golden State Warriors need to be humbled.

The Utah Jazz (4-3) defeated the Los Angeles Clippers (3-4) last night, and advanced to the second round of the NBA Playoffs for the first time since . . . woah . . . 2010. The last time that happened, for example, Basketball John was writing about 200% of every article on this site, we had Fesenko Fridays, Andy B Larsen was writing recreationally for JazzBots, and Amar had never written a single downbeat. Times have changed.

One thing that remains the same is the feel we get from watching our team - our champions - advance after being the under dogs.

And this one, in particular:

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Round two will see the Utah Jazz as the underdog again, this time against the [1] Golden State Warriors (4-0) who took care of business against the [8] Portland Trail Blazers (0-4). I don’t think anyone is expecting the Jazz to win. ESPN for sure does not.

ESPN.com

Their Experts are all picking the Dubs, which makes sense. Very few have the series going to a Game 6. Their Forecast has the Jazz moving on a BPI (7%), FiveThirtyEight (9%), and Fan Panel (9%). The guys over at FiveThirtyEight have a different value, saying that only have an 11% chance of moving past the Dubs. (A 17% chance at Game 1, for what it is worth.) But by far Las Vegas has been the most savage.

But I do expect our guys to compete. For one, GSW hasn’t seen a healthy UTA team yet this series. Second, screw those guys. Look at how smug they all are!

“Boredom?” Wow. These NoCal guys media guys.

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Okay, you’ve probably seen this by now. I have not yet, but I will share it blindly because Coach Nick is a good guy (met him twice at the combine, did a video with him once).

Obviously, the problem here is that one of these guys won games while the other shot more and was a much more dangerous scorer. Who is better? Both will end up in the Hall of Fame, not just one. However, I’m very happy to be biased here. Stockton never kicked his feeties out like a baby having a tantrum. What he did was hit playoff game winners.

Not a guy you can rely on. Unlike John Stockton.

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I want to take this time to recognize Derrick Favors, who we all universally love and want him to stay with the Jazz. He’s such a tremendous teammate. He was the starter but took to the bench without incident. Then he had to become pushed as a starter out of position and performed tremendously against an All-Star / All-NBA center who was bigger, stronger, and more athletic than he.

Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

• Game 1: 15 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block - 32 minutes
• Game 2: 13 points, 7 rebounds, 1 block - 33 minutes
• Game 3: 2 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal - 38 minutes
• Game 4: 17 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals - 24 minutes
• Game 5: 4 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block - 11 minutes
• Game 6: 2 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, 1 block - 14 minutes
• Game 7: 17 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal - 30 minutes

That’s playing an average of 26.00 mpg, and in that time putting in 10.00 ppg, 6.43 rpg, 1.43 apg, 1.00 spg, and 0.57 bpg. In the four wins his numbers were even bigger. We have a lot of heroes in the first round, Gordon Hayward and Joe Johnson made a lot of shots. Joe Ingles and George Hill played defense and took advantage of the defense. Rudy Gobert was big when he was allowed to play. Boris Diaw started games off, and Rodney Hood finished a few.

But really, Derrick Favors was so huge in this series. Love this guy!

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Oh, and while the NBA is forced to #TakeNote of the Utah Jazz . . . check our our new logos!

Vox Media

Vox Media

Vox Media

Say goodbye to the Red Star and the SoHo Pro font package. And get excited for this! And get hyped for what we’re going to be bringing to the blog over the next few days and weeks!

Trivia: How many different SLC Dunk logos designs have there been over the years?