NBA: 8 takeaways from the first round of playoffs

Houston Rockets defeat the Utah Jazz

One of the more overshadowed first-round matchups in comparison to the rest yet was still fun to watch nonetheless. The Rockets started off the series strong then things got tight and the Jazz pulled out a victory in Game 4 but couldn’t bring themselves to reach a Game 6.

This Jazz team was the same team that overperformed everyone’s expectations last year both in the regular season and in the playoffs when they beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round. Now, granted, the Rockets are better than the Thunder, but the main cause of Utah’s demise was that they came back down to Earth and started playing at the level of talent that they actually are. Donovan Mitchell is great and one of the best young players in the league and Rudy Gobert is a defensive monster in the paint averaging a double-double this series.

It’s just that James Harden‘s Rockets are the better team. Gobert outplayed Rockets’ center Clint Capela, but Harden and Chris Paul showed Mitchell and Ricky Rubio who’s the better backcourt duo. This was a bitter-sweet victory for Houston as they now have to play against the reigning back-to-back champion Golden State Warriors who just last season defeated them in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. The Rockets are hungry for revenge but they’ll need a miracle in order to get past Golden State.