2018-19 NBA Preview: Power ranking the bubble playoff teams in the Western Conference Playoffs

#1 Utah Jazz

Gobert and Mitchell after a win over the Kings in March 2018

As a Lakers, Spurs or Thunder fan, you have the full right to remonstrate with the placement of the Jazz over your favourite team as the likeliest bubble team in the Western Conference to make the playoffs.

After all, a team with LeBron, or with 2 perennial All-Stars as the Spurs and the Thunder boast, is supposed to be more talent-laden than a Jazz team whose only All-Star selection in this decade is now a Celtic.

Allow me to clarify my stance with one fact - since losing to the Atlanta Hawks late in January and dropping to a 19-28 record, the Jazz won their 29 of their last 35 games of the season. During this period, the Jazz boasted of a whopping plus-12 net rating during that span, a number that would have led the league by 3.5 points over the whole season.

Utah also posted a 96.5 defensive rating during that time; you have to go all the way back to the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics in 2011-12 to find teams that bested that mark over a full season. This was despite adding Jae Crowder to their rotation during the trade deadline and relying on a rookie Donovan Mitchell for the bulk of their scoring.

Through December, Mitchell's monthly scoring average in the league never dropped below 21 points per game, topping out at 23.1 in the said month.

Gobert won Defensive Player of the Year honours despite missing a third of the season. The Jazz's defence revolves around running shooters off the 3-point line and into the Stifle Tower's path, the kind of responsibility that no other centre has shouldered in the last several years in this league.

The Jazz has no weak spot on their roster, and could arguably have taken the Rockets a lot further than 5 games of the Western Conference Semifinals if they had Ricky Rubio and Dante Exum fit and firing all series long. They are the best defensive team in the NBA at full strength (sorry, Boston), and defence is the surest mantra to making the playoffs.