The Jazz won 29 of their final 35 games after the trade deadline and posted a whopping plus-12 net rating during that span, a number that would have led the league by 3.5 points over the whole season. Utah also posted a 96.5 defensive rating during that time; you have to go all the way back to the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics in 2011-12 to find teams that bested that mark over a full season.
Utah
was the only team to beat Golden State three times last regular season and is now a drastically different offensive team with Mitchell’s scoring.
Utah’s potential ace in the hole against Golden State is Exum, finally healthy and fresh off
cutting his teeth against James Harden during the Western Conference semifinals.
Joe Ingles has proved he can make life a little harder on Kevin Durant. In their past 10 head-to-head matchups, dating back to 2016, Ingles has held Durant to 20.8 points per game (roughly five points below his average as a Warrior) on lower shooting percentages across the board. Ingles won’t do this to Durant, but his complete nuking of “Playoff P” Paul George in Utah’s first-round defeat of the Thunder last season was a sight to behold.
Utah’s downsized lineup of Mitchell, Ingles, Crowder, Ricky Rubio, and Rudy Gobert can more than hang. That unit posted a plus-27.4 net rating during the regular season with an offensive rating (114.8) and defensive rating (87.4) that would rank first in the league in both categories. For what it’s worth, Golden State’s famed Hamptons Five lineup had a worse net rating (plus-8.4 regular season, plus-24.8 postseason) than Utah’s “small” lineup did last regular season.