SALT LAKE CITY — When the Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets begin their first round NBA playoff series next week in Orlando, it will be the first time in 10 years and just the third time in 35 years that they will meet in the postseason.
Despite the lack of recent playoff battles, the teams’ first-ever series against one another back in 1984 was certainly one of the most important in Jazz franchise history, perhaps rivaled only by the runs to the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998, as it started a 20-year playoff run for a team that to that point had largely been a league doormat.