Round 1, Game 1: Utah Jazz @ Denver Nuggets

[El Hespiritu]

Kudos to the Bubble's DJ.

His choice of the songs to play is flawless.

[MeestR]

OVERTIME

[KqWIN]

We ran out of gas...If DEN has to beat us by making >50% of their 3's, so be it. Very content with how we played, but DEN shot the lights out.

[El Hespiritu]

It's over.

You know those WWE 2vs1 matches?
That was this game.

Spida can't do it alone.
The Joker has Murray and Murray has The Joker.

Don has nobody.

He's just a 3rd year guy for God's sake!
We can't ask him to be Superman night in night out and save everybody's ass.

[Crunch 99]

If we can't even win a game when Mitchell has a career high 57 points on 33 attempts, we are in trouble!

[stitches]

We beat ourselves. Bad techs, bad 8 second violation, Gobert not being able to hit his FTs, missing 4-5 point blank layups, 4 consecutive TOs in OT. This team has the knack of doing the hard things and then **** the bed with the routine parts of the game. Still, great game to start the playoffs. Not sure we have much of a chance in the series, there were several not sustainable trends in this one - Mitchell being this efficient, DEN hitting tons of 3s at high %. I guess it will even out the longer the series goes. I don't think we have enough without Conley and having to give Bradley and Mudiay minutes.

[jazzkid]

Jazz are just too short handed to win a series. Im beginning to lose favor in Rudy. He has to finish and make FTs or he will become too much of a liability on the offensive end.

Sent from my SM-N975U using RealGM mobile app

[KqWIN]

We beat ourselves. Bad techs, bad 8 second violation, Gobert not being able to hit his FTs, missing 4-5 point blank layups, 4 consecutive TOs in OT. This team has the knack of doing the hard things and then **** the bed with the routine parts of the game. Still, great game to start the playoffs. Not sure we have much of a chance in the series, there were several not sustainable trends in this one - Mitchell being this efficient, DEN hitting tons of 3s at high %. I guess it will even out the longer the series goes. I don't think we have enough without Conley and having to give Bradley and Mudiay minutes.

I really don't believe DEN can sustain this shooting. They weren't getting incredible looks, almost all of them were above the break 3's. Obviously I don't think Mitchell will continue to be this efficient, but we were doing damage in a way that's repeatable. We relentlessly attack their weak defenders. I'm worried about him running gas though.

Definitely did not do ourselves any favors though. That 8 second violation killed me. Absolutely no way that should happen. It was one of the biggest playoff blunders I've ever seen.

[skywalker33]

13 SUSPERSTAR calls for Mitchell....unreal !!

[NuggetsWY]

I enjoyed the game (although I was worried). Watching Mitchell is worth while any time. I would have loved to watch Harris on Mitchell for a game like this. Craig isn't quiet as good and when Mitchell is on, he's impossible to stop, but it would have been fun to watch.

I didn't notice Clarkson's game - so quiet, but effective.
Gobert was his usual self and beyond his defense, adding 17 points was nice but I expected more rebounds from him.
Ingles had his usual game.
But missing two starters hurt Utah a lot!

Denver's depth wasn't the number of players used, but the overall contributions from more players.

This is going to be a fun series.

[skywalker33]

DM was incredible, 57pts even in OT usually wins this game. But had to take a lot outta the Jazz, doesn't seem sustainable to me.

[red4hf]

Just got nothing from too many players to win...... Man, I hate the Nuggets, but I like almost all of their players, lol...... How does that work......

[tugs]

Is it fair to say everyone on the Jazz except Don played their usual ok game? Someone has to step up tho and I'm not sold on JC and Joe giving their usual "ok".

Rudy got his hands full but he needs to make FTs and not fumble easy drops. Hoeiwas a bit passive most of the game, kicking out layups. JC was out of control early on, eased up, but wasn't able to make open 3s.

Royce was aggressive which I liked, going strong to the rim. Didn't get any calls though.

Game 2 should be good. If they can't adjust to that potent PnR with Jokic and Murray, it's over

[SoCalJazzFan]

Fun game. Mitchell looking like a star. Much more enjoyable than watching Harden.

[El Hespiritu]

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[popfan]

Though I actually like Quinn Snyder I've never believed that he'd be a good NBA coach. Sure he had an attractive resume. He's smart. Duke. Worked under Pop. Received endorsement from Pop. And though Snyder has shown more drive than most products from Duke, he's never been a winner. At times he appears like a more muted version of Šarūnas Jasikevičius, who now coaches for Barcelona. Though Šarūnas was a winner as a pro player, Šarūnas and Quinn have never impressed me as coaches.

The Jazz lost game 1. All is not lost in this series. Yet the Jazz continue to disappoint in the playoffs under Snyder. The Jazz are a team that has been under-performing for years. I recently saw a post on the main RealGM board suggesting that it was Rudy Gobert who is under-performing. Blaming Rudy the Frenchman seems to be en-vogue in 2020.

The Utah Jazz org has a history of showing great patience with head coaches. The patience shown to Snyder has reached a point that it is no longer warranted. As a manager of people. Snyder seems a little lost.

Meanwhile dumping Rubio for Conley seems like a senseless mistake from Jazz management. The Jazz org seems more committed to pleasing their fan base than they are at building a real contender. Even if the Jazz recover in this series I'd repeat my statements.

[stitches]

Though I actually like Quinn Snyder I've never believed that he'd be a good NBA coach. Sure he had an attractive resume. He's smart. Duke. Worked under Pop. Received endorsement from Pop. And though Snyder has shown more drive than most products from Duke, he's never been a winner. At times he appears like a more muted version of Šarūnas Jasikevičius, who now coaches for Barcelona. Though Šarūnas was a winner as a pro player, Šarūnas and Quinn have never impressed me as coaches.

The Jazz lost game 1. All is not lost in this series. Yet the Jazz continue to disappoint in the playoffs under Snyder. The Jazz are a team that has been under-performing for years. I recently saw a post on the main RealGM board suggesting that it was Rudy Gobert who is under-performing. Blaming Rudy the Frenchman seems to be en-vogue in 2020.

The Utah Jazz org has a history of showing great patience with head coaches. The patience shown to Snyder has reached a point that it is no longer warranted. As a manager of people. Snyder seems a little lost.

Meanwhile dumping Rubio for Conley seems like a senseless mistake from Jazz management. The Jazz org seems more committed to pleasing their fan base than they are at building a real contender. Even if the Jazz recover in this series I'd repeat my statements.

Meh... Snyder is coaching without his two most prized acquisitions from the off-season and has to rely on undrafted rookies to start in a playoff game because Lindsey and Co. couldn't give him a better roster and bench. I thought Snyder did well in those circumstances. The GM and FO on the other hand have been having some duds recently...

[KqWIN]

Though I actually like Quinn Snyder I've never believed that he'd be a good NBA coach. Sure he had an attractive resume. He's smart. Duke. Worked under Pop. Received endorsement from Pop. And though Snyder has shown more drive than most products from Duke, he's never been a winner. At times he appears like a more muted version of Šarūnas Jasikevičius, who now coaches for Barcelona. Though Šarūnas was a winner as a pro player, Šarūnas and Quinn have never impressed me as coaches.

The Jazz lost game 1. All is not lost in this series. Yet the Jazz continue to disappoint in the playoffs under Snyder. The Jazz are a team that has been under-performing for years. I recently saw a post on the main RealGM board suggesting that it was Rudy Gobert who is under-performing. Blaming Rudy the Frenchman seems to be en-vogue in 2020.

The Utah Jazz org has a history of showing great patience with head coaches. The patience shown to Snyder has reached a point that it is no longer warranted. As a manager of people. Snyder seems a little lost.

Meanwhile dumping Rubio for Conley seems like a senseless mistake from Jazz management. The Jazz org seems more committed to pleasing their fan base than they are at building a real contender. Even if the Jazz recover in this series I'd repeat my statements.

I don't think you can fire Snyder for random people on the internet blaming Rudy, and you can't knock his playoff record either. He's never been favored in a series, and he's won 2 of them. If his team could make wide open 3's, it would have been 3.

Having said that, Quin has totally failed at being a "manager of people" this year. Maybe it was impossible, the Jazz have very selfish players on this roster, but it got out of control. We had every player who was in front of a mic openly admitting that they didn't care about winning and were prioritizing individual things instead. Of course, the biggest person to blame when Rudy Gobert quits on his team is Rudy Gobert...but it's part of the coaches responsibility to ensure that these things don't happen in the first place.

That last statement is very backwards to me. The Jazz could have easily sat content, resigned Rubio, and continued to win as they had. Rubio was well liked, but they needed a better player. Unfortunately they bet the farm on the wrong player. It was clearly a move to take the next step, it just failed miserably because Conley was not the player they thought he was anymore.

[Inigo Montoya]

I don't think the Jazz have been under-performing in the playoffs in recent years. In some cases they even over-performed, like when they beat the Clippers in a series, or when they won the series against OKC with Westbrook and PG13 who was having an MVP-caliber season.

This doesn't mean much, though. The Jazz are a first/second round playoff team, depending on the matchup. Don't know about other people, but I never expected they'll be any better than that, based on the rosters they've churned over the years. And no, that's not enough for me. I am very far from being satisfied with how they've operated over the past several years.

[stitches]

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Conley back in the bubble ^ It's possible he clears quarantine before game 3.