The Utah Jazz return home Wednesday for a head-to-head collision with the top team in the Western Conference, the Los Angeles Lakers, a matchup that they hope can snap them out of a five-game funk. After having gone just 1-4 on their most recent road trip, Jazz center Rudy Gobert was nonplussed about the criticism that his team faced following its trip east, stating that it was, “Too early for that stuff.”

In addition to having “figured out some stuff,” the Jazz hope that getting back home — where they are 8-1 this season — is the right recipe to keeping the team in the thick of the playoff conversation. Having entered the year with grandiose expectations following the addition of veteran point guard Mike Conley, the Jazz have fluctuated between hot and cold stretches, having already reeled off three separate three-game winning streaks.

Gobert was also one of the players who entered the year with much expected from him, having claimed the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year Award in each of the past two seasons. He has taken those expectations and hurdled most of them, having upped his rebounds per game average to 13.7 on a nightly basis across his first 19 contests.

After back-to-back seasons of recording a playoff series victory in 2016-17 and '17-18, Utah found themselves exiting in the first round last year. They tinkered with their roster before this season in hopes of making a deep run, one which Gobert has belief in being entirely possible. They'll get an excellent early-season challenge in that task Wednesday versus the Lakers.