Utah Jazz at Boston Celtics: Keys to the Game

Coming into tonight’s contest against the Boston Celtics on the back end of a back-to-back, the Utah Jazz will be in for quite a challenge to hold on to their fourth place spot in the West.

The Utah Jazz got their five-game road trip started out right with a 101-89 win over the Brooklyn Nets last night. It was their fourth straight victory, but unfortunately each of the four victories have been against lottery teams and once again it took a ferocious fourth quarter push for the Jazz to put their opponent away.

While it’s great to see Utah playing so well in the final period and closing games out strong, it’s also a bit nervewracking that the Jazz are allowing such subpar teams to hang in with them for the majority of games. Nevertheless, with that win and the Thunder loss last night, Utah is now in sole possession of fourth place in the West without any need for tiebreakers with a record of 22-13.

However, they’re in for quite a challenge if they hope to hold onto that spot as they’ll take on a formidable Boston Celtics team tonight. The Celtics are the third best team in the East with a record of 20-14 and have won seven of their last nine contests. Also, while Utah comes into the game on the second night of a back-to-back, Boston is benefiting from three days of rest.

The Celtics are a deep squad that moves the ball well and capitalizes on the strength of their unit as a whole. They have two All-Star caliber players in Isaiah Thomas and newcomer Al Horford and plenty of talent in reserve after them in the likes of Jae Crowder, Avery Bradley and others.

So there’s no doubt that the Jazz will have their work cut out for them if they hope to move to 2-0 on the road trip and stay in fourth place in the West. Still, they’re definitely capable of winning as long as they can take care of business in a few key areas.

Key Match-up – Gordon Hayward and Jae Crowder

You can bet that if George Hill was for sure playing in this game, then the contest between him and Isaiah Thomas would without a doubt be the key match-up. Thomas has been unbelievable for the Celtics this year as he’s averaging 27.7 points per game and is coming off a career-high 52 points against the Heat in the team’s last match-up.

Unfortunately, it’s looking quite doubtful that Hill will be active in the game and this could provide the Celtics with a key advantage in the contest whereas the rest of the starters on both teams match up relatively evenly against one another.

So without their elite defensive point guard in Hill, the match-up that will be the most exciting and important to keep an eye on will be Gordon Hayward against Jae Crowder.

Hayward is undoubtedly the better offensive player as his season average of 22.4 points per game completely eclipses Crowder’s of 13. However, Crowder is a box score stuffing kind of guy that’s capable of putting up solid numbers in a variety of ways. He’s also a savvy and effective defender that’s known for irritating his opponents and forcing them to have frustrating games.

So although Hayward is coming off a 30-point game against the Nets and the Jazz could use a repeat of that performance, odds are that against a guy like Crowder, that will be a pretty tough feat.

However, if Isaiah Thomas continues to play as he has for the Celtics, Utah will need Hayward to elevate his game to match it. Thomas’ running mate, Crowder, helps this Celtics team in a lot of ways, but if Hayward is able to overcome his influence and at least match Thomas’ scoring output, it will put the Jazz in a good position to win.

One reassuring thing about Hayward is that he has been absolutely exceptional in the second nights of back-to-backs this year as he’s averaged 26.2 points on 49.1 percent shooting from the field and 40 percent shooting from deep in those contests.

That’s definitely the kind of stat line Utah will need from their star if they’re to overcome a loaded Boston Celtics squad.

Key Stat – Assists

The Boston Celtics have certainly enjoyed success thanks largely to the fact that they utilize the team as a whole. As such, they move the ball exceptionally well and rack up a ton of assists. They’re currently third in the league in that category at 24.9 per game.

The Jazz, on the other hand, rank second to last in assists per game at just 18.9. Nevertheless, Utah is capable of being a good ball movement team and in most of their big wins this season, they’ve posted at least 20 assists.

They’ll need to match that kind of production if they hope to keep up with a potent Boston offense that is known for breaking down defenses by moving the ball and making the right basketball play to cash in on easy baskets off assists. If the Jazz want to have any chance of winning, they’ll need to slow Boston’s passing game while having a free-flowing and active offense of their own.

Key Performer – Rudy Gobert

It’s honestly a little bit tough to pick a key performer as the Celtics match up well against the Jazz pretty much across the board. Under normal circumstances, I could see Derrick Favors taking advantage of the power forward match-up against Amir Johnson, but with how poorly D-Faves has been playing of late I don’t feel any confidence slotting him as the key performer.

Therefore, even though Rudy Gobert will be matched up against a former All-Star in Al Horford, I think he’s a guy that Rudy can take advantage of. Horford is a great player, but at 6’10” he is somewhat undersized for a center (which seems really odd to say) and isn’t quite the powerhouse defensive stopper that you’d expect to be able to slow Gobert.

Gobert continued to be a force in the paint in last night’s win against Brooklyn as he notched 15 points and 16 rebounds while holding Brook Lopez to 14 points (six points under his season average) on just 6-of-16 shooting.

Like Lopez, Horford does have the ability to stretch defenders out past the three-point line, but this didn’t stop Gobert from having a dominant night in Utah’s previous contest, so he could very well do it again against the Celtics. Not to mention, the Celtics are the second worst rebounding team in the league in terms of rebounds per game, so this could leave the door wide open for Rudy to do some damage.

Therefore, if he’s able to continue his powerhouse offense and lock Horford down on defense, Gobert could very well leave his mark on the game as the key performer.

Prediction – Boston 94, Utah 88

While I think the Jazz are more than capable of beating this Celtics team, especially as I wrote this piece and envisioned the match-ups, unfortunately I have a feeling that Boston is going to end up being too much for them.

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Not only will the Celtics be well-rested against a likely fatigued Jazz team, but in all honesty Utah hasn’t impressed me that much of late. If they’re able to keep it close up to the fourth quarter and close out the way that they have the past few games, then they could very well win, but Boston will be a lot harder to keep the game close with and a lot harder to finish off

If the Jazz can put together a full 48 minutes of solid play instead of just the final 12 minutes like they’ve shown in recent games, then they can definitely win the game. But that’s seemed to be a struggle of late and particularly given the fact that Hill most likely won’t be around to contain Thomas, I’m going to stick with my prediction from earlier in the week and pin the Celtics as six-point winners in what’s bound to be a hard-fought contest.

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Perhaps Utah has just been playing down to the level of their competition and will be able to keep up with Boston through four quarters, but without any recent play to back that up, I’m not feeling confident in that regard.

Nevertheless, if Utah can succeed with these keys that I’ve mentioned such as containing Thomas, preventing Boston assists and getting a big game out of both Hayward and Gobert than they very well could prove me wrong.

And for the sake of keeping that lovely fourth place spot in the West, I most certainly hope they do.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com