Utah Jazz at Detroit Pistons: Keys to the Game

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Jan 13, 2017; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond (0) keeps Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (27) away from the ball during the third quarter at Vivint Smart Home Arena. Utah Jazz won the game 110-77. Mandatory Credit: Chris Nicoll-USA TODAY Sports /

Key Stat – Rebounds

In the previous contest between the Jazz and Pistons, part of the reason why Utah was able to come away with such a dominant win was because they absolutely punished Detroit on the boards, outrebounding them by a count of 47-35, including 7-3 on the offensive glass.

This feat was even more spectacular given that the Pistons are one of the better rebounding teams in the league as they rank fifth in the NBA at 45 boards per game. The fact that Utah was able to not only outrebound them by 12, but also hold them to 10 under their season average was an enormous contributor to the win.

https://twitter.com/utahjazz/status/841831326324015104

The Jazz do actually enjoy a better rebounding differential on the season than the Pistons, grabbing 2.9 more rebounds per game than their opponents compared to Detroit’s advantage of 2.4. So in that regard it wasn’t so much a surprise that the Jazz were able to outrebound them, but rather it was surprising that they did it by such a great margin.

Nevertheless, Detroit is still a great rebounding team and will likely look to execute much better in that area tonight. Therefore, especially if Utah isn’t hitting threes at the same clip that they did in the previous bout against the Pistons, they’ll need to rely on another solid performance on the glass in order to come away victorious.

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