TNT’s Shaquille O’Neal sparked a kerfuffle Thursday with a pointed postgame question to Donovan Mitchell that prompted an awkward exchange.

“I said tonight that you are one of my favorite players, but you don’t have what it takes to get to the next level,” O’Neal told Mitchell, the Utah Jazz’s all-star guard. “I said it on purpose, and I wanted you to hear it. What do you have to say about that?”

Mitchell, who had just scored 36 points to lead the streaking Jazz to its seventh straight win, replied: “All right.” After a long pause that turned the tables back on O’Neal, Mitchell added: “That’s it. That’s it. Shaq, I’ve been hearing that since my rookie year. I’m just going to get better and do what I do.”

Jazz fans online erupted at O’Neal, who has also prodded Utah center Rudy Gobert for his new $205 million contract, drawing heavy criticism for his clumsy motivational query. In O’Neal’s defense, the coronavirus pandemic has limited media access at games, forcing the analyst and entertainer to play out of position.

Ironically, O’Neal’s question to Mitchell got at the heart of Utah’s early season success, which has been driven collectively rather than individually. The Jazz don’t need Mitchell to be a one-man army because they have constructed a high-efficiency attack around him that relies on scoring balance.

Mitchell, 24, is averaging a career-high 24.3 points per game, but his numbers are virtually identical compared to last season. Even so, the Jazz (12-4) have responded to its first-round bubble exit by storming out of the gates with the league’s third-best record through Sunday. And after years of crafting a defense-first identity around Gobert, the Jazz boasts a top-five offense to pair with a top-five defense.

Utah’s red-hot start owes largely to its historic three-point shooting and its deep commitment to perimeter offense.

Through Sunday, the Jazz was attempting 41.6 three-pointers per game and making 40.3 percent. No team in NBA history — not even Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors or James Harden’s Houston Rockets at their respective peaks — has finished a season in the 40/40 club by attempting 40 threes per game and hitting 40 percent of them.

The Jazz’s efficiency will almost certainly regress, but the fact that it has climbed to these heights is a major development given the franchise’s reluctance to shoot threes that dates to the Jerry Sloan era. Utah ranked 15th or worse on three-point attempts every year from 2000 through 2017, often placing in the bottom five.

Quin Snyder’s 2014 arrival as coach and Mitchell’s 2017 draft selection changed that trend, although the Jazz still spent most of the last decade looking like dinosaurs in the modern era. While cutting-edge teams pushed the pace, constructed outside-in offenses and deployed small ball lineups, the Jazz typically played slow, sometimes utilized lineups with two centers and lost to more prolific shooting teams like the Warriors and the Rockets in the playoffs.

This season, though, the Jazz rank third in three-point attempts and second in three-point efficiency, thanks to Mitchell, veteran point guard Mike Conley and sixth man Jordan Clarkson, who are all averaging new career highs for three-point attempts. While Gobert and backup center Derrick Favors remain non-shooters, virtually every other rotation player is a threat from beyond the arc.

Utah’s favorite lineups feature four shooters, and Snyder’s egalitarian offense encourages ball movement and precise passing that set up higher-percentage catch-and-shoot opportunities. Six Jazz players are attempting at least four three-pointers per game, while five average at least two assists.

When things are rolling, the Jazz’s attack can be a thing of beauty: they claimed their eighth straight win by smacking the Warriors 127-108 on Saturday, scoring 77 points in the first half and jacking up 50 three-pointers on the night. Eight Jazz players hit at least one three, and six scored in double figures.

“They’re trying to win a championship right now, and I think they’re capable of doing so,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said of the Jazz. “The continuity is apparent right away. They execute their stuff beautifully. What’s different this year is that they’re hunting threes more quickly and more often. That’s given them an even tougher dynamic.”

O’Neal might be right that Mitchell isn’t capable of carrying a team to the promised land by himself, but the Jazz would be foolish to ask that of him. Utah’s path to upsetting superstar-driven teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers and Brooklyn Nets cannot rely on Mitchell outdueling LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard or Kevin Durant.

Instead, the Jazz’s championship formula resembles the 2004 Detroit Pistons or the 2014 San Antonio Spurs, hoping that discipline, unselfishness and togetherness can create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It might not work, but it clearly beats the alternative. O’Neal should know: his Lakers lost to the Pistons in the 2004 Finals.

Challenging Mitchell to raise his solo game misses the whole point of the Jazz, who thrive on their star guard’s willingness to buy into an offense that spreads the wealth around at the expense of his statistics and fame. Snyder has praised Mitchell’s “focus on his efficiency and his decision-making,” and rightfully so. Mitchell’s commitments have modernized the Jazz and positioned them as a new threat to the two Los Angeles favorites in the West.

“When we shoot the ball well and defend,” Mitchell said Saturday, “we can be scary.”

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