SALT LAKE CITY – Donovan Mitchell, sitting in Friday’s game while on the league’s concussion protocol, tweeted during the third quarter that seemed terribly like a warning to the rest of the NBA.
“Uh oh Bojan !!!” Mitchell said, with some eye emojis added to.
As if the league needed another reason to fear Jazz.
Utah won its eleventh straight game with a 120-101 win over Dallas at the Living Arena on Friday. Ten of the 11 wins have been by double digits.
According to Clearing the Glass, which eliminates time and garbage loss, Utah has the best net score in the league, second best defense and third best offense; and Jazz is No. 1 overall for a country mile during the long winning streak, a stretch that now exceeds half of the season.
All statistics say the Jazz are currently the best team in the league, and the eye test confirmed it on Friday.
Utah had a 25-point lead after finishing the first quarter, by virtue of getting eight triples in the period and keeping Dallas just a 3-point shot out of 5. Utah led up to 30 points in the game and managed to six players would reach double figures. And all this without his top scorer (Mitchell) or Derrick Favors.
Currently, Utah is a freight train that levels anything in its path. And that train got more fuel on Friday courtesy of Bojan Bogdanovic.
What happens when Utah’s top shooter joins the 3-point climb? Maybe Mitchell said it better, “Uh oh.”
Bogdanovic, who had scored just 27% of three in the last four games, scored 32 points on a 7-of-11 shot from behind the arc. He had 17 points in the third quarter alone, as Utah (15-4) stayed in the league standings.
“We had a discussion this morning,” Bogdnaovic said. “Everyone wants you to shoot more, to be aggressive, but sometimes it’s hard when you’re fighting; when you don’t see the ball going through the net.”
Bogdanovic fired just a triple in Utah’s win over Dallas on Wednesday. For head coach Quin Snyder and the rest of the Jazz, that number was unacceptable. Yes, he has sometimes struggled this year, but he is coming off the best season of his career. And the only way to get back to that level is to keep shooting.
“His way of playing and our way of playing are very appropriate,” Snyder said. “He hasn’t played for a long time. And he’s playing back where he has been, and that sometimes just takes time.
“The biggest thing I want him to do is keep attacking, keep shooting, keep competing.”
For Bogdanovic, Friday’s game started the same way many others have done this season – a couple of missed shots. Snyder drew up a few plays to implicate him, but was unable to convert. When the Jazz finished with a huge lead, Bogdanovic had gone 1 to 3 from the depths.
With Utah’s love affair with the three-ball, Snyder has made it clear that no matter how many three have been lost, everyone should keep shooting. That’s how Utah threw nine straight games with at least 15 triples (one off the league record) and has hit seven triples in a game seven times this season (more than they had in franchise history a year). ).
It’s simple: if you’re open, shoot the ball.
With the Mavericks trying to turn off the paint a little more after Rudy Gobert dropped 29 points on Wednesday (Gobert still had 17 points and 12 rebounds in Friday’s win), which meant less pressure on the perimeter and that meant Bogdanovic was open . In the third he did not hesitate, connecting the four three-point attempts.
With each shot, confidence seemed to grow. His decisions were faster, his publication faster: it looked like Bogdanovic Jazz fans met last season.
“Tonight he was himself, and he makes us so much better when he’s aggressive like that,” said Mike Conley, who had 22 points and nine assists.
After winning 11 games in a row by an average of 15.6 points, should some teams be thinking about how far Jazz can get?
And all this winning has helped Bogdanovic face a slower-than-expected start.
“It would be really crazy if I’m playing the way I’m playing right now and we’re losing, but we win. The team is playing really well,” he said. “So no one cares about their own stats or percentages or what you’re looking for. So it’s great for us to win even though I’m struggling right now.”
On Friday he did not fight. That could be “uh oh” for the rest of the league.
Ryan Miller