Utah Jazz at Denver Nuggets: Keys to the Game
Prediction – Nuggets 112, Jazz 106
As you may have picked up from my less than optimistic mood throughout this piece, I’m not liking Utah’s chances in this one. Not only did they look flat-footed in last night’s loss, but as I mentioned in my recently published Week Preview piece, this game has all the looks of what is often referred to as a “schedule loss.”
The fact that the Jazz had to play last night then jump on a plane and fly to Denver to play less than 24 hours later after already having played three games in four days does not bode well, especially given that Utah will be going up against a team that plays at one of the fastest paces in the league and is historically solid on their home court.
Therefore, while Denver’s lack of defense will likely allow Utah to put up a decent amount of points, I can’t see them having the legs to be able to keep up with a relentless and well-rested Nuggets team and close out the game. Therefore, I’ll stick with my prediction from earlier in the week and pin Denver as six-point winners.
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But to be honest, it’s a prediction that I don’t feel extremely comfortable with and it could be way off for a couple of reasons.
First, Utah is undoubtedly a better team than Denver and on a normal night I’d expect them to win big. If Gobert, Hayward and Hill end up coming out determined to shake off their lackluster performances from last night and the team as a whole overcomes and ignores their fatigue, the Jazz could pull of a big and somewhat surprising win.
Then again, the opposite could also be true and the run-and-gun Nuggets could find themselves picking apart an exhausted Jazz team and run them out of the building in blow-out fashion instead of the game ending up as the tight contest that I predicted.
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Whatever the case, it will be nice for Utah to simply get this nasty stretch of games out of the way and then look forward to a four-game home stand that will stretch out over the course of ten days, giving them plenty of opportunity to rest, recover and get back to their typically strong selves.
And while last night’s game was a heartbreaker and a tired Jazz team could very well drop a second contest tonight, even if that ends up being the case, they should be poised to go on yet another big run to end the month and lead into what ought to be a successful February.
All stats courtesy of NBA.com