NBA Playoffs 2017: Who will the Utah Jazz play in Conference Semifinals?
By Connor Learn
The Utah Jazz defeated the Clippers in seven games to advance to the Western Conference Semifinals on Sunday afternoon.
The fifth-seeded Jazz won three games on the road during their series with the fourth seeded Clippers. They won Games 1, 4, 5, and 7 in this series. Utah took the latter part of the series following Blake Griffin’s injury, but missed Rudy Gobert for much of this series. Gordon Hayward was absent for much of their Game 4 victory as well. It was a dramatic, back-and-forth series that assuredly took a lot out of them.
Their second round opponent will be much more rested. The top-seeded Warriors were one of two teams to earn a first round sweep. They needed that rest to get Kevin Durant and Matt Barnes back at better health, and they will be even more formidable as a result. Golden State will play the Jazz in the second round with visions of another championship as the goal.
The Jazz will do everything in their power to prevent that from happening. Utah plays at one of the league’s slowest paces, which will help slow the uptempo Warriors. Additionally, Rudy Gobert’s interior defense proved to be disruptive to Golden State’s cut-heavy offense. He scored 17 points and grabbed 18 rebounds in their April 10 victory over the Warriors.
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That was the only game that the Jazz won in the season series. Gobert isn’t at full health following his Game 1 knee injury, and his play of late reflects that. He likely won’t have more monster games that carry them to wins. It will be a team effort if they take it to the Warriors, but this Utah roster showed that they won’t back down to an opponent in round one. Utah is ready to battle the odds and a championship favorite in round two.