Utah Jazz at Los Angeles Clippers: Keys to the Game

Prediction – Clippers 104, Jazz 96

I really, really hope I’m wrong here. To be quite honest, I waffled back and forth dramatically on this one and ultimately decided to keep things simple and stick with the same prediction that I pinned in my preview piece from earlier in the week.

To be quite honest, neither one of these teams has been playing all that great of late and that makes this even harder to judge. Both have lost four of their last seven, but perhaps in Utah’s defense, LA’s three wins were against the Cavs JV squad, followed by the hapless Lakers and Knicks.

Still, the Jazz certainly didn’t look much better in their three most recent disappointing losses, so it’s anybody’s guess which Utah team is going to show up on Saturday.

And that could very well end up being the determining factor – which team shows up and which team wants it more. Both clearly have a lot to play for with home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs within reach and the ever-dangerous Thunder lurking not far behind in the standings.

Nevertheless, given that the Clippers will be on their home court, that the Jazz simply haven’t been able to find much of an offense lately and that it’s going to take a lot more than one lone win to convince me that the Jazz are past their woes that now equal a 3-17 record against the Clippers in the last 20 games, I’m going to predict that LA will come away as eight-point winners.

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Nevertheless, that doesn’t erase the valid chance that I’m well aware of that Utah comes out rejuvenated, shakes off their last few dismal performances and turns in a game similar to what they put up in the last contest against LA.

The Jazz obviously understand the importance of this game and have to know how much is at stake. Therefore, by using that knowledge as motivation, a win tomorrow is far from out of the question.

And such a result would thrust them into an excellent spot to keep a hold of the fourth seed heading into the postseason.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com