In the final days before COVID-19 introduced itself like an unsympathetic devil, athletes and reporters did their interviews a couple of yards apart.
It was weird, especially for those who weren’t unanimously famous, to speak from a podium. To Rudy Gobert, it was funny.
On March 9 of last year, the Utah Jazz center answered whatever questions there were, and when he stood up he tapped all the gathered microphones and tape recorders on the countertop. Two days later, Gobert was hoisted on his own petard, as Vin Scully would say, when he tested positive for COVID-19.
As the Utah media rushed to Best Buy for replacements, the doors of sports began slamming shut, like a cell block at sunset.
The Jazz were poised for tipoff in Oklahoma City on March 11 when the PA announcer told everyone the game would not be played “due to unforeseen circumstances.” The fans left and the Jazz went to the locker room. Neither group knew what was next.
That was a Wednesday. By the weekend, all the games in all the sports were either going or gone.
“That’s a long time ago, literally and figuratively,” said Utah coach Quin Snyder at last weekend’s All-Star Game. “It created a lot of chaos and unrest. Chris Paul (then with Oklahoma City) was nice enough to send us refreshments. But how long would we be in the locker room? We were trying to find a hotel room for the night, which was difficult. Transport was going to be an issue. We were all there for hours.”
In fact, the Jazz was not permitted to leave the arena until 1:14 a.m. By then they had been tested.
“The people doing the testing, they weren’t all that familiar with it,” Snyder said. “It felt like it was going into my brain. I’ve still got a few photos of guys getting tested.”
The team did not fly home until late the next afternoon. By that time Donovan Mitchell had tested positive. There were reports Mitchell was irrevocably miffed at Gobert. Both recovered, although Gobert said he lost his taste and his smell, and his breathing wasn’t right.
“I was lucky,” he said, “to have three months to get back. I got it in March and by July I was good.”
How the Jazz went from Patient Zero to the best team in the league in the first half of the 2020-21 season is the definition of a long, strange trip.
Utah came to the Orlando bubble and lost a withering seven-game series to Denver, made worse by Utah’s 3-1 series lead.
The Jazz led Game 5 by 15 points with 9:44 left and lost. At the end of Game 7, Mitchell lost the ball to Gary Harris, and Mike Conley missed a 3-pointer that would have hatched an overtime.
Mitchell was disconsolate afterward. He felt no better when he watched the Nuggets trail the Clippers 3-1 and win that series, too.
“After we lost, there was so much going on emotionally,” Mitchell said. “We were upset because we let games get out of hand. Whatever we were doing, we had to do more. If you’re doing 10 pushups, do 12. That’s how we got to this point.”
This point is a 28-9 record. It is built on Gobert safeguarding the rim on one hand and a wall-to-wall firing squad on the other.
Mitchell, Conley, Jordan Clarkson and Bojan Bogdanovic each launch at least 6.6 3-pointers a game. Royce O’Neale, the defensive ace, has taken only 29% of his shots inside the arc, and Joe Ingles only 31%. Utah has tried 1,582 3-pointers and 1,680 2-pointers. They are poised to erase all long-range records. When you connect on 39.8% of them, it seems to work.
“If you’re playing us, you don’t know where the threat is coming from,” said Mitchell, who is averaging 24.7 points and is easily the most productive player from the 2017 draft. He was the 13th pick, taken just behind Luke Kennard.
Conley, Clarkson and Bogdanovic came in 2019, although Bogdanovic missed the bubble with a wrist injury. Most of the rest have been together for four seasons.
How clear and present is Utah’s danger to the Lakers? The answer is in the fibers within the calf muscle of Anthony Davis. If Davis is whole, nobody in the West beats the Lakers four times in seven tries.
There are also the rising Phoenix Suns who, if you count the 2020 bubble, have won 33 of their past 44 games.
But if the long bomb has become an NBA determinant instead of a luxury, Utah has a shooter’s chance. After all, the Jazz knew about safe spacing before we did.
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