The Jazz have scraped their way back to .500, having won 9 in a row on the back of a gas-sniffing bogan named Joe “Jingle Balls” Ingles. The 8th seed is well within their grasp now: the two teams right above them, the Clippers and the Pelicans, are suffering from a certain lack of supremely talented bigmen who were the catalysts for everything their team did, while the Jazz are finally approaching healthiness (I’m so ready for Dante Exum). Also, the Jazz have Joe Ingles, which I don’t know if I mentioned, but he’s apparently a big difference maker when he plays aggressively.
This is the second-straight career-high for Ingles. He had 23 last night, he had 24 tonight, if this trend continues in the most logical way we’re going to be seeing some big scoring games from him by the end of the season. Like 50 points big. If the trend continues in a different, but still logical, way, he’ll be averaging 20-ish from here on out, which is also good. Either one of those scenarios is something that the 1st seed Warriors definitely do not want to see in the playoffs.
I’ve discovered all of a sudden that I really want to see the 8th-seed Jazz topple the Warriors in the first round. It’s a longshot, but if you played that series 10 times I could see it happening like, 2 or 3 times. That’s super optimistic probably, but who wouldn’t be optimistic after seeing the Jazz demolish team after team and seeing Ingles playing aggressively?