2/8 Utah at New Orleans
6:00 pm MT – Root Sports/League Pass
Opponent record: 19-32
Season series: Tied 0-0
Strangely enough, Wednesday’s contest will be Utah’s first meeting against the New Orleans Pelicans during the 2016-17 season, with all three of their meetings coming in the latter part of the season. From there, the only team the Jazz will have not yet faced this season will be the Washington Wizards which they’ll first take on after the All-Star break.
The Pelicans have been a strange team this year as more often than not they’ve struggled, but as I mentioned earlier they’ve also been able to knock off some of the best teams in the league.
In some ways, they are a worse version of the Oklahoma City Thunder in that the team depends so much on one player because it doesn’t have a ton of talent or depth in its remaining teammates. And while New Orleans’ inferior role players have largely made them worse than OKC, fortunately for the Pelicans, that one guy that they rely on is Anthony Davis who has solidified himself as one of the best big men in the league.
He’s averaging a staunch 27.8 points, 12.2 rebounds and 2.4 blocks this season all while posting an impressive 50.2 percent shooting clip from the field. There’s no doubting that when Davis is on his game, his dominance alone can be enough to make the Pelicans a threat and lead them to victories over any team in the league.
Anthony Davis is getting lonely. Here's the New Orleans Pelicans' TPA breakdown: pic.twitter.com/SBtSYTkVWZ
— NBA Math (@NBA_Math) January 18, 2017
Nevertheless, it would be pretty hard to ask him to do much more than what he’s done this year and more often than not, even Davis hasn’t been able to help elevate this team to new heights single-handedly. He’s the classic example of a great player on a bad team and their record is proof of how rough this season has been for them.
However, while typically Derrick Favors has done a commendable job matching up against Anthony Davis, Utah’s power forward has become significantly less than reliable of late and may very well not be able to give the Jazz the much-needed edge that they’ve come to expect.
Nevertheless, given New Orleans’ lack of depth and overall struggles this year, I fully expect the Jazz to be able to take care of business in this one and come away with a solid win.
With all the bodies that Utah can throw at Davis along with several favorable match-ups across the rest of their roster, barring an unforeseen outrageous performance from the Pelicans star the Jazz should have more than enough weapons to over come a lackluster New Orleans team.
My Prediction: Jazz Win
Final Score: Utah 104, New Orleans 92