Rudy Gobert urged his Jazz teammates not to get complacent as they lost their 4th game out of 6 to the Wizards last night.
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The Utah Jazz organisation had an unfortunate exit last season during the playoffs. Despite being 3-1 up against the Denver Nuggets, they were bundled out by their archrivals.
This season, the Jazz started the season in red hot form. They clearly looked to redeem themselves from their last season’s debacle. As their All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert took some criticism from former NBA legends, they became hell-bent on proving all their doubters wrong.
Although, despite having a great start to this season, the Jazz have hit a rough patch lately. The team which had won 19 of their 20 games, has now been struggling to find their groove back, losing four of their last six games.
On Thursday night, Jazz lost to the Bradley Beal-led Washington Wizards. The star-studded backcourt duo of Westbrook and Beal combined for a whopping 73 points. They helped their team clinch a comfortable 131-122 win over Utah.
Rudy Gobert, who had a double-double performance, expressed his frustrations on the team’s recent form. The Frenchman revealed:
“We have to realize we haven’t accomplished sh*t. We get upset when people laugh at us on TV and disrespect us but it’s on us to have respect for ourselves.”
The Utah Jazz are 2-4 in their last 6 games
Rudy Gobert: “We have to realize we haven’t accomplished sh!t. We get upset when people laugh at us on TV and disrespect us, but it’s on us to have respect for ourselves and understand that we’re not the champions.” pic.twitter.com/pVnVQ1yWw7
— NBA Central (@TheNBACentral) March 19, 2021
‘We aren’t the champions, we have to stay hungry’: Rudy Gobert
Despite their fall in performance in the last couple of weeks, the Jazz have still managed to hold onto the top seed. The Lakers are back in form. They’re only 1.5 Games behind Utah, they could find themselves losing their number one spot.
There’s no doubt that the All-Star duo of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert have led their team well so far. They were heavily criticized for their performance last year and early in this season too. Rudy Gobert wants his team to stay hungry and he believes the team will have to earn respect and not just get it. He added:
“(We) understand that we’re not the champions. We are not a team that can just cruise and turn it on come playoff time, we have to stay hungry.”
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With more than thirty games remaining this season, the Jazz has ample time to get back into the form they were in. With the potential, this Jazz unit has, this finally could be the year when they make a deep playoffs run.