Utah Jazz: How The Music Once Again Stopped Abruptly

This image is a derivative of 2013 Utah Jazz 1 by Michael Tipton (CC BY-SA 2.0)

It took until the depths of the seventh game, but the best player in the Denver-Utah series finally became the best player in the series.

Nikola Jokic had gotten his numbers in the first six games, but there was a bit of an emptiness to them, as the most skilled, ethereal big man in the game was reduced mostly to a jump shooter. Rudy Gobert was devouring Jokic, denying him magic, and forcing him into numbed convention.

The outside shots were falling, though, and Jokic was making an impact, but he was a sidekick on his team and to the broader spectacle, which belonged to Jamal Murray and Donovan Mitchell.

In Game 7, at last, Murray and Mitchell became human again, shooting 3 for 14 on threes. The first six games - a stunning, unprecedented light show of historic shooting - did not feel like basketball, and neither did Game 7, which was a passionate, tense, deeply entertaining rock-fight. In this setting, with everything so difficult and stunted, Jokic's brilliance came to the fore again and, fittingly, produced the game's definitive bucket.

Nikola Jokic against 2x DPOY Rudy Gobert this series:
29PTS 10 REB 3 AST 57.1%3PT
28PTS 11 REB 6 AST 50%3PT
15PTS 5 REB 6 AST 33.3%3PT
29PTS 7 REB 6 AST 30%3PT
31PTS 6 REB 4 AST 63.6%3PT
22PTS 4 REB 9 AST 60%3PT
30PTS 14REB 4AST 40%3PT
Game winner in the GAME 7
🖐️ @rudygobert27 pic.twitter.com/fwfAKsN2sW

— THE JOKER(S) 🃏🇷🇸 (@NBASerbians) September 2, 2020

Jokic put up 30 points, 14 boards and 4 assists, and scored 8 of Denver's 15 fourth quarter points when nothing else was working, with the Nuggets submarined by a team-wide scoring drought that bordered on farce. His final act was a perfect summation of Denver’s game - a post-up that was intended to be delicate and went nowhere, bailed out by a soft, marvellous touch falling away. A gift when everything looked lost.

RELATED: Why A 17th LA Lakers Championship Is No Certainty

It was a strange, magnificent game. After playing completely disoriented in the first half in a sort of masochistic haze, the Jazz woke up in the third quarter, and by the early fourth, it looked like their game. The Nuggets were slow, tired, tense and quiet, while the Jazz were enlivened, with Mitchell and Gobert lifting and playing with a speed and fury that had been sapped from Denver. 

The Nuggets had a chance to finish the Jazz late in the first half with Gobert and Mitchell on the bench in foul trouble and Juwan Morgan guarding Jokic on every play. But Utah stuck around and then found themselves in the third quarter, while Denver got tight and started playing an offence that looked like a short-handed power-play in hockey. 

The Jazz came all the way back from 19 down to take the lead and it felt like the mountain had been climbed and there was no way back for the Nuggets. Utah's 68-65 lead with eight minutes to go felt like the largest three-point advantage in basketball history. 

But in a game devoid of rhythm and rational progressions, Denver rallied through Jokic, and then through two moments from Murray, and survived the absurd, frenetic final act where everything burst into flames for 8.4 seconds.

Ultimately the Jazz were the victims of this madness and this great series. They tossed away a 3-1 lead and, most crucially, a 15-point lead in the third quarter of Game 5. At that point - 71-56 with 9:43 left in the third - the Nuggets looked broken, before Murray channeled several higher powers and brought them back.

RELATED: Can the 76ers Still Trust The Process?

Beyond the devastation of having to watch a series-winning three rattle out at the buzzer, Utah should not lose too much from this defeat. They were not winning the title this year, and both these teams were likely playing for the right to get crushed by Kawhi Leonard in the conference semi-finals.

The Denver Nuggets are now the 12th NBA team to come back and win the series after falling to a 3-1 deficit.

And the Utah Jazz are the 12th NBA team to ever blow a 3-1 lead.

— Disney Gary Clark (@Itamar1710) September 2, 2020

Mitchell's ascendance was the most important development in the series for Utah, win or lose. 

All series Mitchell was a titan, but particularly in Games 1 and 4 , where he willed the Jazz to the edge of victory by himself in Game 1 and took them across the line in Game 4. 

He did it with off the bounce threes, powerful, mazy, deceptively quick drives to the hoop, and acrobatic and deft finishes at the rim. He was a willing and capable passer, with 5+ assists in five of the sevengames. In the biggest moments, he was fearless.

Gobert too was a monster, completely shutting down the way Denver wanted to play - only Murray's transcendence kept them afloat. He turned Jokic into a jump shooter and took away his passing (Jokic only reached his regular season assists average - 7.0 - once in the series). Outside of Mitchell, Gobert's ability to not just contain but overwhelm Jokic one-on-one shaped the series for the Jazz more than anything.

RELATED: Are The Freakish Milwaukee Bucks Heading Towards Another Collapse?

Utah came into the season with realistic visions of a championship, a potentially superior version of the 2015 Atlanta Hawks, succeeding with movement, passing and shooting, while also being anchored by the best defensive big man in the game.

What eventuated was hardly a disaster, but it was a blunted season that never took flight. Outside of a 19-2 midseason run (where 16 of the wins came against sub-.500 teams), the Jazz never properly threatened. They moved the ball wonderfully and had pristine shooting and spacing, and Gobert to make the defence respectable. But they played with a jarring lack of force. Mike Conley, Joe Ingles and Bojan Bogdanovic are brilliant players, but they all play with finesse and deception and delicate skill, unable to just barrel to the rim.

The lack of athleticism and pace sapped a transition game that ranked in the bottom-10 in the league for frequency and efficiency. Too often, the Jazz were forced into Mitchell and Conley floaters, and on the other end, they didn't have the power to contain the league's most imposing offences.

Presuming Conley opts in to his player option, this is more or less Utah's team going forward, with their future hinging on Mitchell taking another leap, and older pieces around him hanging on. 

It's not the brightest future imaginable, but it's hardly bleak, and next year they will get another chance to prove their resilience. Until then they’ll be left to lament not burying Denver in Game 5 and not, in the end, rising all the way out of the dirt in Game 7 to see the final shot fall.

Did you enjoy this article? Join our free mailing list to get the best content delivered straight to your inbox, or join the conversation by leaving a comment below or on the Stats Insider Twitter or Facebook page.