Utah Jazz vs. New Orleans Pelicans: Keys to the Game

Coming off of a hard-fought win over Sacramento last night, the Utah Jazz will be in for a challenge as they head home for a quick turnaround against the New Orleans Pelicans tonight.

As the old saying goes, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than be good. That mantra was in full effect for the Utah Jazz last night against the Kings as they overcame a 16-point deficit to force overtime then managed to win the game on a controversial tip-in from Rudy Gobert.

It was a hard-fought bout that came with a bit of a lucky break for a Jazz team that may find themselves desperately needing wins in a tough month of March if they hope to hold onto the fourth seed in the West.

Unfortunately, Utah won’t have much time at all to rest and recover as they headed straight back home after the win last night and will be hosting the New Orleans Pelicans in tonight’s contest. It’s quite ironic that the Jazz played DeMarcus Cousins’ former team last night and now are hosting his current team tonight.

To be quite honest, neither of those teams has fared quite well since that blockbuster trade as the Kings now sit at 1-4 since losing Cousins and the Pels sit at 2-4 since acquiring him with the first of those wins coming when Cousins was suspended for exceeding the season technical foul limit and the other coming last night against a hapless Lakers team.

Therefore, while the Pelicans presumably should be a better team by adding a superstar like Cousins, they haven’t necessarily gotten their game plan completely figured out quite yet. Thus hopefully the Jazz will be able to take advantage of the fact that they are still working to find cohesion and therefore come away with a big win.

Unfortunately the Jazz have struggled mightily of late in their first game at home after being on the road, as evidenced by the recent blowout loss to the Timberwolves last week. Especially given that tonight’s game is the second night of a back-to-back and an odd home stop sandwiched between road games, it will be interesting to see how the Jazz respond.

Luckily, it’s the second night of a back-to-back for the Pelicans as well after playing much later than Utah did last night. Not to mention, while of course New Orleans is a new-look team with the addition of Cousins, the Jazz were able to effectively dismantle this team the last time they faced. Therefore, with several favorable match-ups across the board, Utah should be able to log a big win as long as they are locked in in the following key areas.