After a tremendous regular season where the Jazz secured the one seed in the Western Conference for the first time since Stockton and Malone, the Jazz finished the season losing four straight to the Los Angeles Clippers in the conference semifinals. The path to the Finals looked about as serendipitous as one could hope for: the Lakers eliminated in the first round on the opposite side of the bracket, the Clippers losing Kawhi Leonard for games 5 & 6 with the series tied 2-2, and the Suns facing questions about Chris Paul’s availability; heck, throw in the Brooklyn Nets’ injuries woes and there was period of about 48 hours where I had convinced myself that this was Jazz’s title year.
2021 Jazz post-mortem: the perils of being very good not great
