Derek Bodner: Ben Simmons, on being runner up on Defensive Player of the Year voting: “Congrats to Rudy (Gobert). It is what it is. I’m not really concerned about individual awards. I want to win the championship.”
Utah Jazz Rumors
Andy Larsen: Mike Conley is listed as questionable for Game 3. (Donovan Mitchell isn’t on the report at all, for those concerned.)
Sarah Todd: Mike Conley is traveling to LA with the Jazz today.
Basketball-Reference: Yesterday was Donovan Mitchell’s 13th 30-point playoff game. In the last 40 years, the only players with more in their first four seasons in the NBA are Hakeem, Wade, and LeBron stathead.com/tiny/vzOhX pic.twitter.com/nYnROoFkUh
But in an interview with TrueHoops TV, Grover added a twist: he thinks Jordan was poisoned deliberately. “Five guys came to deliver the pizza,” Grover said in the interview. “I take the pizza and I tell them: ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this … I’ve just got a bad feeling about this.’ “
In other words, the Jazz have much more depth than the Mavericks do. The Mavericks have superstar Luka Doncic, whose effectiveness mostly dropped only because of a neck injury and occasionally because of Leonard’s defense. Otherwise, Kristaps Porzingis and Tim Hardaway only offered some flashes. “They weren’t ranked No. 1 in the West for no reason. This is a tough team. But we’re approaching this the same way Dallas was,” Clippers forward Paul George said. “As good as they’re playing and as tough as this matchup is, we still feel like there’s moments throughout this game and this series that we’re making plays that are self inflicted. It’s a lot of uphill. But we’re optimistic that we can get this under control.”
