He can shoot threes, and he can shoot midrange shots. But Conley’s at that same point in his career he’s no longer a proverbial three level scorer. He just has to be in control at all times, beat people with grift and skill, pass fakes and sheer brain power. Note that Paul is still really good, and Conley can be too. This actually can work - Paul only takes shots at the rim 5% of the time, less than half of the 12% ratio Conley does.
#Rudy gay choke full
He simply has to go full Chris Paul and just hardly ever take a layup. Honestly, at this point, Conley has to embrace his oldness. Their only hope is to change their mentality. But when they’re this mentally weak, they have no prayer of doing anything notable in the postseason. The only way that the Jazz work is if they have more team cohesion than their opponents. In the playoffs (beyond the first round, anyway), they’re going to go up against All-Star starters first and second team All-NBA players. I have zero hope for them in the buyout market - if players didn’t come last year, when they had the literal best record in the league, why would they join the West’s No. The trade deadline has come and gone, and their only acquisition was two players well out of the rotation. And that ignores losses like tonight’s, against an absolutely woeful team that has lost seven of nine and lost their second-best player to injury before halftime. During their best regular season in decades, they went a pretty standard 14-10 against top-10 competition this year, they’re 8-10. They lost a 2-0 lead to the Clippers, and the aforementioned Game 6 happened after the opposing team lost their best player to injury.
#Rudy gay choke series
The Jazz lost a 3-1 series lead to the Nuggets.
There have been too many key failures in the last few seasons. Rudy Gay, the Jazz’s big offseason signing that was supposed to help with all of this, wasn’t playing.
Okay, sure, you can make all sorts of excuses. The defense was again a tire fire, absolutely baffling at times. Like a weak fencer, they played offense with helpless jabs. Against that, the Jazz’s offense got pretty stagnant and unconfident. It’s also exactly what happened in that Game 6: The opposing team went small. I mean, heck: from a sheer tactical standpoint, what happened to the Jazz tonight is pretty much what happened in their last matchup against the Lakers a couple of weeks ago. If tonight’s game was a collapse - it was - that was a disintegration. Oh, and you probably remember last year’s Game 6, in which the Jazz lost a 25-point lead after halftime. It’d be one thing if this was the first time this had happened, but it’s the 10th time that the Jazz have lost a late double-digit lead this season. Then, when they saw that the other team was coming back, they played scared - scared to stand up and take a shot, or to make a big defensive play. They had a 12-point lead late, and instead of putting the foot down, they messed around. Most game outcomes are coming down to skill or luck, not who is stronger between the ears. I really got my start in my career by analyzing the Jazz and the NBA analytically. Look, I’m not a big believer in intangibles. Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 106-101 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.