The Jazz are not what they were, and not with Williams hurting. Jazz rebounding has been bad, by Jazz standards. Our advantages over the Lakers have been trimmed to "Deron Willams, and that's it." The Jazz worked hard at thinning out the roster (and payroll), and succeeded in turning the Jazz into a mediocre team.
The team competes hard, mostly because they've still got a coach who demands it in Sloan, but ultimately, it's a question of hard work getting them a bit of recognition early, with teams now preparing a little better for them, and a combination of team energy being overspent early and better preparation by opponents making it next to impossible to continue coming back on people. Instead, we get behind, and it's a lot tougher to overcome that, now.
This should not be a surprise.