Whichever team wins the second-round series between the Jazz and Clippers, which gets underway on Tuesday night, is viewed as the betting favorite to represent the Western Conference in the NBA Finals. But even just winning one more round would represent a major step forward for these two franchises.
The Jazz are in the postseason for a fifth consecutive year, but they haven’t advanced past the Western Conference Semifinals since the 2006/07 season, and haven’t appeared in the NBA Finals since being defeated by Michael Jordan‘s Bulls in back-to-back years in 1997 and 1998.
The Clippers have a far more extensive track record of playoff disappointments. Since the franchise moved to Los Angeles in 1984, the Clippers have made it beyond the first round only five times and have never made it past the second round. If they can win this series, the Clippers will be in the Western Finals for the first time ever.
Of course, while advancing to the Western Finals will be huge for the team that makes it through, losing this series would represent a major disappointment for the team that falls short.
The Jazz had the NBA’s best regular season record in 2020/21 and are nearly at full strength entering the second round (Mike Conley is listed as questionable for Game 1 with a mild right hamstring strain). The Clippers went all-in two summers ago to land Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, with aspirations of winning the first title in franchise history. Neither team entered the postseason expecting to only win one series.
The Jazz will enter the series as slight favorites, per BetOnline.ag, but as John Hollinger of The Athletic writes, it’s not the most comfortable matchup for Utah. The Clippers don’t rely on getting to the rim to score, which will nullify the impact of star rim protector Rudy Gobert to some extent. And the Jazz’s options for guarding Leonard and George are limited beyond Royce O’Neale and Bojan Bogdanovic.
Still, Gobert is capable of punishing smaller Clippers lineups, and the Jazz have the offensive firepower necessary to take advantage of switches, as Hollinger writes. Additionally, the Clips had to push their key players much harder to get out of the first round. Leonard and George played big minutes in elimination games on Friday and Sunday, while Conley, Donovan Mitchell (who returned from an ankle sprain in round one), and the rest of the Jazz got a few days of much-needed rest.
This series seems like a strong candidate to be a seven-gamer. But we want to know what you think. Which team are you picking to advance to the Western Conference Finals, the Jazz or the Clippers? How many games do you expect the series to last?
Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section below to share your predictions!
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Joe Ingles owns Paul George
Dude. That’s either racist or stupid.
He outplays him a lot in their matchups…
Joe is a good player. Any past success he has had is likely due to the Clippers focusing on the best Jazz players and Joe stepping up to knock 3s down. He’s a good guy to have on your team.
I’m black and I took no offense to it. I took it as him saying that Ingles gets in PG’s head in the playoffs…
Agreed, one has to be stupid to interpret that as racist.
Maybe its b/c it was Utah? I was thrown off…
I still have to watch the game from earlier, but I see Paul George on that 3 for 17, and feel like my point was made
lol ingles only played him when he was in okc with westbrick and bums, he was the main guy.
Joe Ingles was at Paul George’s parents engagement party, ready to offer up some wisdom from his decades of experience.
Yup. Mitchell owns him too. When he was a rook he dominated Russ, PG & even Melo….
Now that they have Paul George, they need to add John Ringo!
Ok, I’ll give you a thumbs up
Unfortunately Johnny Ringo has been dead for almost 139 years.