NBA: Moves that West playoff teams need to make to take a step forward

Utah Jazz: A deeper roster

The Jazz was far and away the best regular-season team last year, but the wheels came off for the surprise No. 1 seed in the second round.

The starters carried their weight pretty well, all things considered, headlined by Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert and superstar Donovan Mitchell. They also had the top two vote-getters for Sixth Man in Joe Ingles and Jordan Clarkson.

However, they had little else.

Mike Conley went down with an injury and missed the majority of the second round of the playoffs. This left the Jazz with only six reliable players – Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Royce O’Neale, Bojan Bogdanovic, Joe Ingles, and Jordan Clarkson– and it showed. In a Game 1 win, the rest of their players outside of their core six were a -16 in just under 36 minutes. This means, the Jazz were 16 points worse with these players in. In another win in Game 2, -4 in 10 less minutes. After losing the next two in LA, their reliance on their core six showed as the rest of the team played under 20 minutes combined in Game 5 and were a -19. The fatigue of so many minutes clearly set in for the core group when the Jazz blew a 25 point lead in Game 6.

Worryingly, the Jazz had the same problem last year. They were forced to start oft-used Juwan Morgan, who had only played 134 career minutes up to that point, in a PLAYOFF game because Bogdanovic was out.

Plain and simple, the rest of the bench is just simply not ready to produce in the playoffs. The Jazz employs multiple former second-round picks at the end of their bench who average under ten minutes a game in the regular season and aren’t useful in playoff runs. The Jazz needs to replace a couple of these guys for veterans who can help them win now.