#1 Utah Jazz vs. #7 Los Angeles Lakers
There’s truly no guarantee that the Jazz even get to this point because they’ve proven time and time again that the postseason just isn’t for them.
However, since they’re the one seed I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
The Jazz are another team who hasn’t played the Lakers with both Davis and James in the lineup this season. Taking a look back to last year, Utah just simply wasn’t able to guard Davis.
Last season, the Lakers managed to take all three of the two team’s matchups and Davis was an absolute force to be reckoned with in all of them. In those three games, he averaged 29.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and 3.0 blocks all while shooting 51.8% from the field and 40.0% from deep.
The Jazz have noticeably improved this year on both sides of the ball, as seen by the fact that they are the only team in the entire NBA to have a top-4 Offensive and Defensive Rating. However, the Jazz give up the tenth most points in the paint and the Lakers are a team that likes to dominate teams with their size, scoring 45.5% of their points from around the basket.
While the Jazz don’t score a ton in the paint, they do make teams pay from beyond the arc. In fact, 43.2% of their points come from deep, the highest mark in the league by a fairly sizable margin.
Just a year ago, the Lakers faced off against the Houston Rockets who also took a ton of triples. During the regular season, they jacked up 45.3 threes per game and shot them at a 34.5% clip while also scoring the second-most points in the league (117.8).
The Lakers were able to lock in on defense and allowed Houston to take 40.8 triples and score just 103.8 points per game, which would have been the third worse of any team that made the playoffs last year.
Yet again, the Lakers are very good at limiting their opponent’s 3-point shots and should be able to really hinder Utah’s ability on the offensive end.
For me, this series comes down to the fact that the Jazz don’t guard the Lakers’ primary source of scoring very well while the Lakers are very well equipped to lock in on Utah’s bread and butter.
Result: Los Angeles Lakers in 5