Utah Jazz: Back at full strength, the Jazz needs to reassert its dominance

It’s time for the Utah Jazz to reassert its dominance. 

For much of the season, the Utah Jazz has been the best team in the Western Conference. On the backs of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, Utah has played (during the regular season) as a legit championship contender in the West.

However, over the last 16 regular-season games and through one game in the playoffs, Utah has come back to earth, so to speak. A big part of that has been the injury of Mitchell, who has been out of the team’s lineup since mid-April with an ankle injury.

In the games he’s missed, the Jazz was 10-6 to close the regular season and sits in a 1-0 series hole at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies after he missed Game 1 of their first-round NBA playoff series between the two teams.

With Donovan Mitchell back, the stage is set for Utah Jazz to roll

Heading into Game 2, with Mitchell slated to return to the team’s lineup, the Jazz needs to use this opportunity to send a message to not only the Grizzlies but also to the rest of the West. Utah needs to remind the rest of the conference just how real of a contender this team is.

The team clearly tried to steal another few days of recovery for Mitchell, by sitting him out in Game 1 when he clearly felt he was ready, but as the team attempts to avoid losing both games at home, the hope is that the Jazz can flip the switch with Mitchell back on board.

Whether it was the right or wrong decision is irrelevant. What’s important now is that the team moves forward in their quest to win the West. But this is often the danger of either resting players or bringing injured players back into the lineup in the middle of the playoffs.

Of course, Mitchell isn’t just another player and he’s vital and essential to the team’s chances at making a deep playoff run. Mitchell is coming off the best statistical season of his career thus far, in which he averaged 26 points and five assists per game on 44 percent shooting from the field and 38 percent shooting from 3-point range.

In the playoffs last season, in which the Jazz took the Denver Nuggets (an eventual Western Conference finalist) to seven games in their first-round playoff series, Mitchell was an absolute superstar. In those seven games, he averaged 36 points, five assists, and five rebounds per game on 53 percent shooting from the field and 52 percent shooting from 3-point range.

If the Jazz can get that player again this postseason, this is a team that could absolutely make a deep run in the postseason and possibly wins the West. Mitchell is back, hopefully, 100 percent healthy, and needs to take his rightful spot in leading the Jazz.

And it all starts in Game 2 against the Grizzlies. After an embarrassing loss at home to open the playoffs as the 1-seed in the West, the Jazz, now fully healthy, needs to reassert its dominance in the West.

Much like the Milwaukee Bucks did against the Miami Heat in Game 2 of their respective series, it’s time for the Jazz to send a stern message to the rest of the conference. Utah is back at full strength and ready to roll.