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Who have you been most wrong about?

Biggest surprise for me is the off the charts chemistry and joy in a so called tanking team and the extremely beautiful brand of basketball they play.

Out of the personnel it is Clarkson by a landslide. I thought he is a mindless me first chucker whom I would absolutely hate to watch from game one. Turns out he is my second favourite Jazz player after Lauri now and I see him as somewhat of a heart of this team.

/TSS
 
Gotta say, Clarkson is really rapidly moving up on my all-time favorite players list.
 
Well there is likely a crash coming at some point. Literally no one knew what to expect from this team, but as we play, other team's scouting gets better, and they can better prepare for what we are doing, and we will see the effects in more losses. But damn if it isn't the most fun I have had in watching the Jazz in decades. As long as they keep their attitude and keep playing their unselfish ball they will still win a lot of games this year. My bet at this rate is we end up somewhere between 4th and 8th in the West. Maybe a play-in team, but I think we get more in the 4-6 range, once all is said and done.

Then again, since we really don't know what this team can do, there is the chance they figure out how to adapt when other teams know more to game-plan against them, and they win even more than expected. At this point, finishing anywhere from 2-12 would not surprise me. Crazy season for sure.

Right now their biggest strength is that you cannot just stop any one guy. If you key in on Clarkson, then you give Markkanen an opening and that is bad. Or if you key in on Lauri, the guard core goes nuts. Or key in on stopping Sexton/Conley/Clarkson and we bring in bigger guys like THT and even Gay to shore up the offense and provide a defensive spark, and don't forget sleepers like Beasley and Vando, who could both go off if given the opening. So many weapons, and so many decent to great playmakers, and no egos. No one cares who the hero is, they just want to win. Tough to stop this team without a strong concerted very high-level team defense. Like Milwaukee right now. But there are maybe 3-4 teams in the league with an overall defense that strong. And even then we will have bursts that could bury them. Will be really interesting to see us going up against a few of the real power-houses of the league, like the suns and bucks. Then we will see what this team is made of.
Yeah it's going to come down . NBA have pro scouts and they know what they are doing. This is where coaching comes in. The ability to adapt and adjust during the game and coach Hardy have shown us he can. we still need to lose tho. losing is equally important as winning as it develops your ability to bounce back. and we still need a superstar and i hope lauri can be that guy. you know they get favorable calls and everything.
 
What is crazy is that I now see Clarkson as a part of the long-term plan. His loyalty to the franchise and his switch to more of a leader/facilitator has been incredible.
 
They didn't know how to play the zone at all. They fouled so much at the start because they didn't know how to move in the zone scheme. Dallas played the zone much better.

Edit:
But I agree that we were much better prepared for it. It's obvious it was practiced after that Dallas game, so that if we see it again we know how to adjust.

I suspect that the next time Dallas throws a zone at us, it won't be near as effective. The Jazz were so new in their offense that anything the defense did differently was going to be a problem. The Jazz should have a natural advantage over a zone with athleticism, length, and shooting. I suspect a few more teams may try it in the next few weeks before it is abandoned as a strategy against us altogether.

The next thing we are probably going to see is teams putting a long wing on Conley and bringing a double every once in a while. The Jazz should alredy have a plan for that though. . .
 
I suspect that the next time Dallas throws a zone at us, it won't be near as effective. The Jazz were so new in their offense that anything the defense did differently was going to be a problem. The Jazz should have a natural advantage over a zone with athleticism, length, and shooting. I suspect a few more teams may try it in the next few weeks before it is abandoned as a strategy against us altogether.

The next thing we are probably going to see is teams putting a long wing on Conley and bringing a double every once in a while. The Jazz should alredy have a plan for that though. . .
Good thoughts. Atlanta just threw a near steady full court semi-press at us, with the obvious intent to keep the ball away from our primary ball-handlers, but we are embracing positionless basketball and so someone else brought the ball up court and Conley still had a career high assists. Clippers kind of did the same thing off and on, and we broke that pretty well too. I am sure this will continue to be something we see, them trying to smother Conley or get the ball out of his hands, but we have so many other fully capable ball handlers and creators that the effectiveness will be limited. I think it will really take a top-notch team D to really knock us down, like the Bucks. They will be the hardest team to beat this year, and should probably win another ring as long as they can be healthy and clicking at the right time. Sure would be fun for us to be the team facing them in the finals though.

I can see this team going on a real win streak here. Would not be surprised to see us win 10 in a row with where we are now. Man this is a fun season.
 
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