Gordon Monson: The Utah Jazz’s highway to title contention now looks like 50 miles of bad road

In the last 24 minutes of a critical competitive situation in Game 5, the tiebreaker of the Jazz’s playoff series with the Clippers, the Jazz seized up like a bad engine, dumping oil and belts and gears, an entire transmission, all over the county two-lane, a road that was said to be leading them to real contention, maybe even a championship.

Pppffffwwww.

That’s improbable now.

The road is presently being traveled in … what, a beat-up 1973 Datsun B-210 with a wobbly wheel — an ankle that won’t seem to heal? It is a byway that has more than just potholes in it now. It has a massive mudslide covering it.

There’s no other way to say this, so let’s say it, repeat it all straight: The Jazz gagged on this significant occasion like a team unworthy of the acclaim they have received this season, a season that was intended to be different, end different than previous ones.

It still might. Just like I might be elected governor one day.

When it mattered most, the Jazz were not different, certainly not in the second half of Wednesday night’s game, a game they should not lose, would not lose, could not lose, but did, anyway — by the count of 119-111.

Not only were they playing at home, in front of an explosive crowd, so eager to give them a boost, playing against a team without its best player, the best two-way player in the NBA, they certainly were playing with more advantages than disadvantages, except for the most important one.

They weren’t good enough to win.

If they were good enough, with or without Mike Conley, that makes the result even more tragic, less tolerable.

Get a load of this: Rudy Gobert said the Jazz came out with a soft mindset, one that featured a lack of “urgency.”

“We know we’re going to need a better collective effort than we had tonight,” he said. “… We have to get our mind right.”

Their mind right?

Who shows up wrong-minded for a Game 5, with a series ready to tilt one way or the other?

If the Jazz didn’t have their mind right for this game, a game in which Kawhi Leonard was out with what could be a serious knee injury suffered in a collision with Joe Ingles in the fourth game, then when exactly were they figuring to set and get it right?

Gobert even said the fact that Leonard wasn’t playing, and everybody knew it, might have been the reason the Jazz didn’t have the necessary force and fortitude and intensity to handle their proper business here.

“It takes a lot of mental toughness to play the right way,” he said. “… It takes a team effort. … We got to make sure we give everything we’ve got. It’s on the whole team to give everything they have.”

You mean, like the Clippers did?

The conclusion to draw from this game, then, is an unhappy one, with the aforementioned choices. Either the Jazz are what the critics suspected and said they were throughout the regular season — an adorable little team that would pose no real threat when the games really mattered, or they are a team that really is a threat, but that couldn’t overcome adversity and conjure enough willpower and wherewithal, enough resolve and tenacity at the most major of moments.

Donovan Mitchell wanted to face neither of those choices, saying it wasn’t a matter of a lack of urgency, rather … “We’ve just got to do a better job as a unit.”

He added: “We’re going to make some adjustments. … We’ve got to close out against these guys.”

Or?

“I’ve got to find a way to make it happen. I’ve gotta find a way or we’ll be home. We’ll figure it out, or that’s gonna be it.”

He added further that his hurting ankle is really messing him over, which is no surprise to anyone who watched him try to elevate in the last two games, both Jazz losses.

“For the first time, I’ve had to play on the floor. … I can’t really move. … It’s something I’m going to have to deal with. …”

Pause.

“… It sucks.”

Not as badly as what the Clippers are dealing with.

Their star couldn’t play at all and probably won’t play again this postseason. If the injury is as serious as some suspect it to be, he might not play next season.

And yet, the Clips responded straight into the Jazz’s mug with increased fury — especially from Paul George, who carved up the Jazz’s ragged defense with 37 points, 16 rebounds and five assists. All of which made the echoes of chants by Jazz fans in previous games of “o-v-e-r-r-a-t-e-d … o-v-e-r-r-a-t-e-d” when George shot free throws all the more ridiculous.

The o-v-e-r-r-a-t-e-d one all but killed the Jazz, going iso time and time again, additionally setting up his teammates, and leaving Utah a spit away from a long, dark summer.

“This was the biggest game of our postseason,” George said. “… We knew we had to play together.”

Didn’t the Jazz realize that, too?

George, in the absence of Leonard, also inspired his teammates. Marcus Morris had 25 points, Reggie Jackson went for 22, each of them fired up with extra sauce, doing whatever was required to plug a gaping hole.

“The big thing is, we weren’t getting stops,” Quin Snyder said.

It appeared as though they couldn’t get them.

Or they wouldn’t.

Critical thinking, like life, is full of tough choices.

With Leonard out, it’s still possible, you would suppose, that the Jazz, even after losing three straight games, might pull off some kind of miracle and win the last two to advance.

Could the beat-up Datsun B-210 with the blown engine and wobbly wheel — an ankle that won’t seem to heal still go the distance? And if it could, would it?

Belief comes harder now without proof.

After what happened on Wednesday night on their home floor, in a building they almost never lose in, nobody’s quite sure, not anymore, if the Jazz have it in them. Nobody knows if there’s enough elasticity in their imagination for it to stretch that far.

GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 2-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone, which is owned by the parent company that owns the Utah Jazz.