Key Stat – Assists
The last time these two squads faced off, the Jazz actually shot very well from the three-point line at 42.3 percent. However, it wasn’t nearly enough to match that of the red hot Celtics who simply could not miss as they finished the game with 17 made threes at a scorching 54.8 percent clip from deep.
However, perhaps more impressive than that sky high percentage was the way the Celtics were creating those looks. Their offense was flowing in every way, the ball was moving well and Boston was able to finish the game with 31 assists. Isaiah Thomas alone logged a career-high 15 of those.
As was mentioned in the key match-up, he’ll be in for quite a challenge if he hopes to do that against the length of George Hill, but regardless of what the end result is for him individually, the Jazz have to match Boston’s offensive energy from that last game, move the ball and come out on top in the assist battle this time around.
The Jazz logged some incredible assist numbers in their wins against Atlanta and New Orleans, with 31 and 25, respectively. It looked like they would do the same initially against Dallas, but despite logging 26 assists for the game, unfortunately the offense went extremely stagnant from the middle of the third quarter on.
There will be no room for stagnation tonight against a daunting Boston Celtics team who is third in the league in assists per game, thus hopefully the Jazz will reach an assist number closer to what we saw in this week’s earlier contests. If they bring that energy and move the ball well enough to do so, they are plenty capable of coming away victorious.