The Utah Jazz have turned malady into opportunity, racing to a league-best 10 straight wins after Tuesday's win over the Brooklyn Nets. Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, two of the staples of this win streak, admit they wouldn't like to mess with a team grooving like this.
“I wouldn’t like to guard ourselves,” said Gobert, according to Brian Mahoney of The Associated Press.
Mitchell, who returned from a one-game absence to put up 25 points — including 14 in the fourth quarter — helped open up a 20-point lead and kept a Kyrie Irving-led team from stealing the shine.
“We’re in a groove,” said Mitchell.
The Jazz haven't only won 10 games in a row, but also 15 of their last 16 games, putting up a solid month of great performances, despite losing starting point guard Mike Conley, who has been hampered with a left hamstring strain for most of December — missing 18 of the last 19 games.
Since, the Jazz traded Dante Exum for a plug-and-play spark plug in Jordan Clarkson, who has given them the instant offense off the bench they expected to get upon finalizing the deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Joe Ingles has taken Conley's role as the primary playmaker and has thrived beautifully in it, a huge reason why the Jazz are performing like an orchestra at the halfway point of the season. The Aussie scored a team-high 27 points on 10-of-14 shooting from the field, including 6-of-8 from deep — something he attributed to his big men Gobert and Royce O'Neale.
“The bigs were so far back tonight it was kind of just like practice shots,” Ingles said. “Rudy was hitting great screens and we were able to kind of walk into it and shoot open 3s.”
The Jazz have outscored teams by 12.4 points per game during their win streak, and there are no signs of them stopping anytime soon.
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