Before the postseason started, Utah was positively optimistic when thinking about the road ahead.
Although the regular season hadn't gone according to plan, some of what went wrong were out of their control — such as injuries and health and safety protocols. But the other issues were self-inflicted, which caused problems throughout the regular season that saw the Jazz finish lower in the standings than expected.
Rather than looking at those issues as a negative, Utah took a unique view of the situation. They chose to look at those struggles as growing pains, lessons learned that not only made this team tougher mentally and physically, but lessons that would showcase their ability to fight through adversity.