2018 NBA Playoffs Preview: Oklahoma City Thunder vs Utah Jazz, SWOT Analysis & Prediction

#4 X-factor

Let us all just agree on the fact that Steven Adams is massively underrated

Oklahoma City Thunder - Steven Adams

Ask any Oklahoma City Thunder fan who their third-best player on the roster is and most of them would pick Steven Adams over Carmelo Anthony in a heartbeat. The big man from New Zealand has been winning hearts all over with his contributions for OKC.

Be it his supporting role on offensive plays, his beastly presence in the paint, his hustle on the glass or his insightful screening, Adams is always in action when on the floor. His matchup with Rudy Gobert would be critical to Thunder's prowess in the paint.

The Kiwi wrecking force would be expected to create space for his OKC teammates to operate from. His offensive rebounding - where he is the joint leader in the league averaging 5.1 offensive boards - would come in handy. Adams could be a useful scoring weapon from close range as well, given his 62.9% field goal accuracy.

Utah Jazz - Joe Ingles

Joe Ingles in the only other respectable scorer on Utah's roster apart from Donovan Mitchell

While he is still averaging only 11.5 points per game, Joe Ingles has a good scoring accuracy of 46.7%. He drained 44% of his 5.7 3-point attempts in the regular season and led the league in precision from beyond the arc until early March.

Ingles can be the second big scoring option for the Jazz. He is averaging his career-high points per game and field goal percentage and it is only justified that he takes things up a notch from here. He needs to take more attempts and if he keeps up his field goal percentage, he might just end up averaging close to 20 points in the playoffs.

However, don't take Ingles to be only an option on offense. He is one of the rather underrated defenders on the Jazz roster with decent mid-range and paint defense skills as signified by his defensive rating of 102.3.