Utah Jazz at Denver Nuggets: Keys to the Game

Looking to earn a much-needed win after dropping three straight, the Utah Jazz face a talented Denver Nuggets team in tonight’s contest.

Things have gone from bad to worse for the Utah Jazz during their fourth week of the 2016-17 NBA season. After putting up an impressive road trip, the Utah Jazz have now dropped three straight games to the Memphis Grizzlies, Chicago Bulls and Houston Rockets.

While Utah was definitely in the game against Memphis, in both the contest against the Bulls and Rockets, you got the feeling that the sluggish Jazz were never truly going to be able to pull away. So a once formidable looking 7-4 start has now dropped to a mediocre 7-7 record through the first 14 games of the season.

And with that being the story so far, the Utah Jazz now prep to play in their second game in as many nights as they take on the Denver Nuggets on the road this evening.

The Nuggets come into tonight’s contest having lost five of their last six games including a heartbreaker in overtime at home against the Raptors on Friday. Despite the Nuggets’ poor 4-8 record, they’ve lost a number of very close games and have been competitive in nearly all of their contests. They’re a young and talented team that has the ability to surprise anyone.

With that being said, especially given the way the Utah Jazz have been playing so far, they better be careful against a dangerous Nuggets team.

The athletic Nuggets like to get out and run and with the Jazz likely feeling some fatigue from last night’s contest, they’ll need to find a way to overcome tired legs and slow down this high-octane Denver team.

One surprising stat is that despite Utah’s struggles, they are currently 3-0 in the second game of back-to-backs this season, so hopefully they’ll be able to put themselves into another gear once again this time around.

To do so, here’s the critical keys that they’ll need to be sure to address.

Key Match-up – Gordon Hayward and Danilo Gallinari

On a team that is predominantly made up of young bucks, Danilo Gallinari is one of Denver’s more veteran players. With seven full seasons under his belt (excluding the 2013-14 season in which he sat out the year due to an ACL injury), Gallinari has been leading the charge for the Nuggets and has provided much-needed leadership and experience.

With the exception of Will Barton who has appeared in just three games and is questionable for tonight’s contest, Gallinari leads the Nuggets in scoring with 17.3 points per game. He has been shooting the ball well from the arc at a 37.1 percent clip, but has struggled somewhat overall from the field, converting on less than 40 percent of his attempts.

But fortunately for Gallinari, his small forward counterpart on the Jazz, Gordon Hayward, has struggled even more from the field and particularly from deep. While Hayward’s 39.4 percent isn’t far behind Galliniari, the Jazz star’s dismal 22.7 percent shooting from behind the arc on the season has had devastating effects on the Utah offense and seriously hindered Gordon’s game.

While both of these players are key pieces on their respective teams, the one that emerges victorious in this match-up will likely be whichever one can find their shooting groove. It’s no secret that Hayward’s recently fractured finger has been bothering him so it’s going to take a major turn-around on his part to outplay Gallinari.

Yet even with Hayward’s shooting struggles, he is still averaging more points per game than Gallinari (19 compared to 17.3) and even when his shots aren’t going down, he’s found other ways to contribute as he holds a significant lead over Gallinari in other areas such as rebounds and assists (7.6 rebounds and 4 assists compared to 4.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists).

Thus even if Hayward’s shooting woes continue, his ability to put up a more well-rounded performance could very well help him to have a greater impact on the outcome of the game than Gallinari.

Key Stat – Rebounds

After being thoroughly dominated on the boards against the Memphis Grizzlies, the Jazz were able to come back with solid rebounding games against both the Chicago Bulls and Houston Rockets. However, unfortunately they weren’t sharp enough in other areas as poor shooting and turnovers turned out to be enormous detriments that resulted in Jazz losses.

And Utah will have their work cut out for them on the boards this time around as coming into Sunday’s slate of games, the Denver Nuggets are currently the NBA’s top rebounding team, pulling down 49.6 per game.

While it’s easy to assume that this high rate is solely because of the team’s fast pace, it’s important to note that Denver also enjoys the best rebounding differential in the league as they’re currently out-rebounding their opponents by nine boards per game. Now that is impressive.

While Utah does fortunately still hold a positive rebounding differential of 0.8, with the likes of Denver’s Kenneth Faried, Jusuf Nurkic, Nikola Jokic and Wilson Chandler (who surprisingly is the Nuggets’ second-leading rebounder at 7.5 per game) there to swallow up the boards, the Jazz will have to work hard to make sure they don’t get caught napping.

Of course, Utah has still lost their last two contests despite winning the rebounding battle, so they’ll have to do more than simply take care of the boards. Nevertheless, rebounding has been Denver’s key strength that has kept them in games, so if Utah is able to fend them off in this area, they’ll put themselves in a great spot to come away with the victory.

Key Performer – Rodney Hood

I was certainly accurate in predicting that Rodney Hood would be the top performer in last night’s game against the Houston Rockets as he was one of the few bright points for the Jazz in his 25-point, 61.5 percent shooting outing that also saw him notch five three-pointers.

And with the Nuggets’ Will Barton questionable to play tonight, this will leave aging veteran Jameer Nelson as the running mate to Emmanuel Mudiay in the Denver backcourt who will be tasked with stopping Rodney Hood. While Nelson is having a decent year in his role with the Nuggets, he lacks the length and defensive prowess necessary to slow Hood.

And off the Nuggets bench, there aren’t a great deal of wing stoppers either. As it appears that Hood has shaken off his mini-slump that he underwent after dealing with illness, he’ll likely be able to turn in a big game once again against a less than dominant defense.

Denver is 25th in the league in opponent points per game, so an offensive powerhouse like Hood should be able to take considerable advantage.

Prediction – Nuggets 105, Jazz 98

I’ve picked the Jazz to win every match-up they’ve had this week and have been wrong, so this time I’m going to go with a Utah loss.

I’m partially doing this in hopes that my reverse psychology will continue to work and by being pessimistic the Jazz will come back and burn me by actually coming away with a much-needed win. However, I’m also going with the Nuggets because the Jazz offense has looked absolutely scary lately.

And when I say scary, I literally mean the keep-you-awake-at-night kind of frightening.

The Jazz currently rank 27th in the league in points per game and in the bottom half in three-point percentage. While they were able to put in 102 points against the Rockets, this was thanks largely to Houston’s ridiculously up-tempo style of play. Utah scored just 77 points in the loss to the Bulls and haven’t been able to find any cohesion on offense all week.

More from The J-Notes

• With the FIBA World Cup over for Simone Fontecchio, it’s clear he deserves minutes for the Utah Jazz
• Best, Worst and Most likely scenarios for the Utah Jazz this season
• Hoops Hype downplays the significance of the Utah Jazz’s valuable assets
• 3 Utah Jazz players who have the most to gain or lose this season
• Former Utah Jazz forward Rudy Gay is a free agent still and it shouldn’t surprise anyone

Consider all this along with the fact that Utah’s playing in a back-to-back while a young and quick Denver team is coming off a day of rest, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Utah’s offense fall short once again, unable to keep up with Denver’s relentless attack.

So once again, I certainly hope I’m wrong and that by betting against the Jazz perhaps the basketball gods will end up smiling down on them, but given Utah’s recent performances and seemingly never-ending battle with injuries, I’m predicting a hungry Nuggets team comes away with a win tonight, dropping Utah to a sub-.500 record for the third time this season.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com