The Utah Jazz are a team to watch. At 41-23, good for 4th in the Western conference, they’re a main contender in the upcoming quest to send one of the Los Angeles NBA squads home earlier than desired in the playoffs. Here’s the Deseret News summarizing the Jazz situation as they settle in at the Disney NBA restart campus in Florida:
The Utah Jazz arrived at the NBA bubble on July 7, isolated in their hotel rooms for two days, then held their first practice in nearly four months. After six consecutive days on the court the team took a day off on Wednesday. On Saturday, they took their second day off from practice…
The Jazz have six more days before exhibition games begin, with their first scrimmage against the Phoenix Suns on July 23. It’s another week after that before the NBA season restarts on July 30…
The players showed up in great shape as far as conditioning goes but there’s still some fear about being ready for the burst movements in games and some of the things that regular weight training can help prepare the body for. This was a big concern of Donovan Mitchell’s leading up to the team leaving for the bubble and Mitchell has mentioned it as a concern even after going through practices in Orlando.
The Jazz went on wildly erratic runs this season, stringing together stacks of wins for a few weeks, and smaller streaks of losses for briefer stretches. It’ll be fascinating to see which squad shows up come playoff-time.
