“Next man up” is one of those cliches so trite as to elicit almost universal eye-rolling at its mere utterance, but these Utah Jazz — in the wake of simultaneous injuries to point guards Ricky Rubio, Dante Exum, and Raul Neto, plus forward Thabo Sefolosha — have been embracing it with enthusiasm.
Yes, at its most basic, it means it’s incumbent upon the likes of Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles, Kyle Korver, Royce O’Neale, et cetera, to do more to fill the void. The tricky part, coach Quin Snyder explained before Monday’s win over the Pistons, is that “more” in this case doesn’t simply entail, say, Mitchell doing more Mitchell things, or even just Mitchell doing some Rubio things, now that he’s serving as the de facto point guard.