Utah Jazz at Indiana Pacers: Keys to the Game

With just one game left on their current road trip, the Utah Jazz will look to get back on the right track as they take on the Indiana Pacers tonight.

If you had been stuck on a deserted island for the past six months and the first thing you did upon returning to reality was to watch the Utah Jazz play the Chicago Bulls on Saturday, you likely would have never believed that they were the fourth seed in the Western Conference and closing in on a 50-win season.

The Jazz looked flat-footed and failed to put together any sort of a cohesive offense after the first six minutes of the game. Their poor showing allowed a Bulls team who was coming in on the second night of a back-to-back and that had lost seven of their last eight games to earn a surprising victory.

Fortunately, that’s just the way basketball goes sometimes and in an 82-game season, a team is bound to have a couple of disappointing showings. However, with just 12 games left in the regular season for the Utah Jazz, it’s absolutely vital at this point in the season that they keep those kind of dismal performances to an absolute minimum.

They’ll have a chance to bounce back and reverse their fate tonight as they’ll take on the Indiana Pacers in the final game of a four-game road trip. Utah has gone just 1-2 so far on the trip, so if they hope to finish the stint at .500 and hold onto their narrow two-game lead over the Los Angeles Clippers in the Western Conference standings, they are in serious need of coming away with a win this evening.

It certainly won’t be an easy task as they’ll be taking on a Pacers team that is currently sixth in the Eastern Conference and boasts a formidable group of players that includes the likes of Jeff Teague, Myles Turner and Paul George.

Not to mention, while Indiana has been just about as inconsistent as Utah this season (if not more so), in those rare games where they’ve clicked, they’ve been a formidable foe.

They’re also extremely solid on their home court where they post a 24-10 record, so despite the fact that they’ll be playing on the second night of a back-to-back after losing to Toronto yesterday, the Jazz will need to be prepared and focused if they hope to come away with a win.

Despite the up-and-down nature of the Pacers season this year, they’ve clearly been a better team than the Bulls. Therefore, given that the Jazz weren’t able to get it done in Chicago, they’ll have to put together a much better performance if they hope to defeat Indiana tonight and sweep the regular season series.