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BOSTON — Before Friday’s game, Quin Snyder was asked if Mike Conley’s recent uptick in production was sustainable.
The Utah Jazz head coach answered the question with a query of his own.
“Is there something that makes someone think that it's not sustainable?” Snyder asked. “Because I think this is who he is.”
He would get no arguments on Friday.
Conley scored 25 points and handed out five assists to lead the Jazz to a 99-94 victory over the Boston Celtics at TD Garden. He was phenomenal, controlling the game through pick and roll after pick and roll. He was scorching from the field, coming out by hitting four of his first five 3-pointers. He was everything his coaches and teammates think he is.
And frankly, they are hoping that this time, the doubters will finally be silent for good.
“I don’t want to hear any more Mike Conley slander. I’m out. Mic drop!” Georges Niang proclaimed as he left the locker room.
“Y’all can continue to hate and say what you want. I see it, and I know he does too,” Donovan Mitchell said. “Games like this, they’re not going to say anything. They’re just gonna wait. That’s Mike Conley.”
Conley did it early — scoring 15 points by halftime, leading a crucial 14-2 run to end the first quarter that flipped the game. He did it late — making three key buckets in the fourth quarter as the Celtics were trying to mount a comeback.
On a night where Mitchell (11 points), Bojan Bogdanovic (8 points) and Rudy Gobert (9 points) all struggled on the offensive end, Conley proved he could still take over a game.
Conley faced up on Grant Williams midway through the fourth quarter. A quick jab step. And then another. Then Conley let the 3-pointer fly. Splash.
Minutes later, he dribbled inside as the shot clock wound down. The Celtics threw two defenders at him, forcing him to shoot a high-arcing jumper. He smiled as it went in.
Then, with Jayson Tatum on him, Conley delivered a quick crossover to give himself a free lane to the hoop. A couple of dribbles and a high-banking layup later, Conley was cooly trotting back down the court.
“For us all to come out and play with the passion that we played with and just compete the way did,” Conley said, “for us to come in and just be aggressive, be assertive at all times, was a lot of fun.”
Conley’s calm and cool demeanor followed him right into the locker room. As Mitchell screamed louder asking where all the trash talk was and as Niang did his mic drop, Conley just smiled.
After what is now five straight games of 15 or more points — four of which have been wins — Conley had earned the right to fire back at the doubters, but everyone knew that wasn’t coming. Not from him.
Conley has been here before — and been here a lot. He’s won much bigger games than this (though everyone admitted that this one was an important one for the Jazz to get), and had much better individual performances. But, really, he doesn’t care too much about the outside noise.
Yes, he’s heard all the internet talk about his disappointing season, but he knows who he is. So, too, does his team. And they were the ones that were more than happy to gloat for him.
“I saw him working his tail off to front the post,” Snyder. “I saw him taking charges last game. I saw him getting on the floor the game before that. He’s just competing.”
And that competitiveness led to one of the Jazz’s best wins in some time. It’s no secret Utah has struggled against winning teams. And while the Celtics might have been shorthanded — missing both Jaylen Brown and former Jazzman Gordon Hayward on Friday — it’s still a team that is fighting for a top-two seed in the East. And the Jazz won with defense for the first time in a while, posting a defensive rating of 96.9 — their lowest since Jan. 20.
“Big time,” Mitchell said of the win. "It’s good to beat teams that we should beat" but beating teams with winning records means more, he said. "Obviously coming in there (after losing to the Celtics) back home, this one meant a lot to us. It’s just going out there and competing.”
And he might not have said it, but the game meant a lot to Mike Conley, too.
