Utah Jazz: A Way-Too-Early Look at Potential Playoff Match-Ups

Jazz vs. Spurs

Depending on which Jazz team we get for the majority of the rest of the season – the squad that manhandled the Thunder in December and beat the Cavs earlier this month or the one that has struggled to beat bad teams and buckled to both OKC and Memphis last week – falling to the seventh seed is by no means out of the question.

Before this past week, Utah had won six straight and looked poised and ready to bust up the Western Conference standings. But after losing to both the sixth-seeded Thunder and seventh-seeded Grizzlies in the same week, there’s a legitimate fear that Utah could find themselves tumbling below those evenly-matched Western Conference foes.

If that is the case, barring some strange turn of events with the current top-three seeded Warriors, Spurs and Rockets, the Jazz would find themselves matched up against the daunting San Antonio Spurs in the first round.

The last time the Jazz played the Spurs in the first round of the playoffs was in 2012 in which the Jazz were promptly swept. If that same match-up occurred this season, it could very well end in the exact same result.

However, the season series between these two teams is currently tied at one apiece with the Jazz winning their first contest in San Antonio in several years. Nevertheless, with such a savvy veteran squad, a superstar in Kawhi Leonard and arguably the best NBA coach of this generation in Gregg Popovich, this battle-hardened and playoff-tested Spurs team would likely not find the Jazz to be much trouble at all in postseason play.

Of course the last few months of the season could prove otherwise for either team, but for the most part this is a match-up that the Jazz should undoubtedly hope to avoid in the first round if possible. If they can claw their way out of their recent slump to at least hold on to at worst the sixth seed for the rest of the season, that would help them get a much more favorable match-up.

However, the Jazz still have two more games against the Spurs this season to help us get a better feel of how well or poorly the two teams may match up against one another as they’ll play in San Antonio on April 2nd and in Salt Lake City on April 12th in the last game of the season.

There is a chance that in that final game, depending on the playoff picture at that point, either team could potentially be resting key guys in preparation for the start of postseason play. But hopefully at least the game on the 2nd will give a better feel for how well Utah can hold their own against San Antonio.

Yet, while in the first contest the Jazz were able to run away with a victory, the Spurs looked more prepared and much more like themselves in the second contest that saw them pummel the Jazz in Salt Lake City. So regardless of what happens in April I’m going to stick with the notion that this would be a bad match-up for the Jazz.