Lakers: Saturday’s win proves something Jazz fans don’t want to admit

A depleted Los Angeles Lakers team defeated a depleted Utah Jazz team on Saturday night in overtime, 127-115. It was an entertaining game despite the lack of starpower for either squad.

Typically it is a bit absurd to take too much from a regular-season game in April, especially when both teams were missing their star players. These are not the two teams that are going to square off against each other in the NBA Playoffs, if they meet up, of course.

However, the fact that the star players for both teams were out of action does tell us something. It is only one game, sure, but it proved something that fans of the Utah Jazz probably do not want to admit.

It is something that I have argued here on Lake Show Life before and will continue to argue until the two teams meet up in the playoffs if they do.

The Utah Jazz are not a threat to the Los Angeles Lakers. 

Why Saturday’s game proved that the Utah Jazz are not a threat to the Los Angeles Lakers:

The biggest advantage that the Jazz seemingly have over every other playoff team is the ball movement and the role players off the bench. This is a team with synergy that, at its best, reminds basketball fans of the San Antonio Spurs teams from the mid-2010s.

When it comes to star power, the Los Angeles Lakers have an obvious advantage. LeBron James and Anthony Davis are two of the seven best (at worst) players in the league. Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are a solid tandem, but neither are in the top 10.

In fact, when all parties are healthy, I do not think the Jazz even have a top-five duo. The Lakers, Nets, Clippers, 76ers, Nuggets and even the Phoenix Suns have better star duos. You could throw the Bucks in there as well just because of how good Giannis Antetokounmpo is.

But that is not what makes Utah successful in the first place; it is the role players around Utah and the ability to truly play as a team to outlast their opponents. That is the reason why they have the best record in the league.

First of all, playoff basketball is much different than regular-season basketball and there are previous teams that were similar to this year’s Jazz that did not have as much success. Albeit they made the Eastern Conference Finals, the 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks were swept by LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers despite having the best record in the East.

But this is different, right?

If it is different then why didn’t the role players on the Utah Jazz defeat the role players on the Los Angeles Lakers? How did the role players on Utah allow three different Lakers to score 25 or more points?

The play style when the stars are out is obviously much different, but Saturday’s game showed something that should worry every Jazz fan. The Jazz have one-way role players. While there are some players who can hold their own on the defensive end, there are also some role players that are terrible defensively.

Jordan Clarkson is great when he scores 20 off the bench but in the playoffs, he is going to be borderline unusable because of how a smart team like the Lakers will attack him. It is the Lou Williams effect.

The Los Angeles Lakers scored 110 points in regulation on Saturday. That might not seem like much but the Lakers were averaging 102 points in the 15 games prior to Saturday’s. The team’s offensive rating in those 15 games was 104.4. It was 118.3 on Saturday.

At the end of the day, it still is just one game. But if the Lakers’ role players are outplaying Utah’s role players then what advantage does Utah really have? They certainly don’t have the superstar advantage.

Home-court advantage. That would be the only advantage Utah has over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Playoffs as the Lakers are the far better basketball team and will prove that when it matters most.

Statistics courtesy of Sports-Reference Stathead tool.