Everybody’s bummed.
Don’t be.
Through a remarkable set of circumstances that were somehow realized on the last night of the regular season, the Jazz were shoved into facing the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, starting Sunday night in Houston.
It’s a good thing, a great thing, a useful thing, something to celebrate, and nothing to dread.
Jazz fans — and probably the Jazz themselves — wanted Portland, on account of the fact they thought that would be easier. The Blazers also thought the Jazz, who they split games with during the season, would be easier than the Thunder, against whom they were 0-4. But they went ahead and won on Wednesday night, despite falling behind Sacramento by 500 miles in the first half, before hitting the throttle hard to win. Now they’ll get OKC.
And — suh-weet — I like it.
Just like everybody else around here — including Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors and Ricky Rubio and Joe Ingles — should be stoked the Jazz are playing the Rockets instead of the Blazers. It’s what, in the spirit of Texas, y’all should want.
No need to be a bunch of namby-pambies. No reason to be avoiding the tough road. No cause to freak out or shrink away from an outfit that was the best team in the league after the All-Star break, a group that won better than four games for every one it lost over the back half, a side that ousted the Jazz, fittingly enough, by winning four games against one loss in last year’s playoffs.
Get that lame frame of mind, that loser’s attitude, that weak shiz out of here, man.
Buck up and charge on.
There’s no purpose in delaying what everyone wants and needs to know: How much have the Jazz improved?
With the Jazz promptly matching up against the Rockets, the multitudes — including Jazz players, coaches, and management — can find out what this team is made of, what it’s capable of, what heights it can reach, without further delay.
Playing the Blazers would have postponed some of that for a couple of weeks. And without Jusuf Nurkic, the Blazers likely would have fallen to the Jazz. Don’t know it for a fact, but that would have been a rocksteady guess. And a first-round victory like that might have been faintly encouraging, might have provided a few more games from which the Jazz could have profited in ticket sales, might have emboldened those who are looking to feel good about the progress the Jazz have purportedly made over the past year.
But it would not have proved much. Not really.
Vivint Arena would have been full. The clamor inside the building during games would have sounded like a hundred Freightliners rolling through the hallways and out onto the court, rumbles reverberating off of every wall, every crevice, every fan’s eardrums. It would have added a little extra fun.
And it would have done nothing but set up an authentic showdown against the Warriors in the second round.
As is, the Jazz get that showdown now.
Funny thing, the Rockets and their fans look at the Jazz like some around here looked at the Blazers — as an easier path. They, too, will get the Warriors, at least in their minds, in the second round. For them, there is still a score to reverse from last postseason’s business with Golden State. The Jazz are merely an onramp to that revenge.
But opportunity is as fine a motivator as vengeance.
That’s all the more reason to embrace playing the Rockets. They’ll say all the right things about the Jazz going in, but the body language from last season and parts of this season, as well, screams, “You poor pitiful souls are beneath us. We will send you packing. We will crush you.”
Last postseason, the Rockets — and some others — were disrespecting the Jazz’s stars, saying that Mitchell’s name — cute as his game was — shouldn’t even be spoken in the same paragraph with James Harden’s, and that Gobert was inferior to Clint Capela. Remember that?
Mitchell was just a pup then. Gobert had to learn a few things.
Now, when the games matter most, we’ll immediately get to see how much growth has occurred. And since most predict the Jazz to lose, an opportunity exists.
There’s no arguing that the Rockets were better than the Jazz last time — by a substantial margin. By how much, if at all, has that margin been reduced? We’ll see if Quin Snyder can find a way for his players to conquer Houston’s switching defense. We’ll see if the combo-pack of Harden and Chris Paul can be slowed, if the Jazz’s perimeter defense can put up enough resistance to give Gobert a chance to effectively roam without getting punished by drives and dimes to the Rockets’ bigs.
More than that, without further ado, we’ll see rather plainly how much ground the Jazz have to make up before they can stand on contention’s doorstep, how great a need there is for management to no longer sit still, calling for individual players to improve while only minor moves are made, but instead to get busy, make some deals, take a risk, expend and exchange some financial flexibility for additional talent that can slam the gap shut.
That’s what this Jazz-Rockets series is really about.
It’s a clear path to the truth.
And who isn’t eager for that?
GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.
