Utah Jazz Week Twenty-Five Outlook, Predictions

The Utah Jazz will prepare for postseason action with a two-game slate against the two best teams in the NBA in the final week of the 2016-17 regular season.

As hard as it is to believe, the final week of the NBA regular season is finally here. These last 24 weeks have most certainly been a roller coaster as the Utah Jazz have looked like everything from an elite force to a lottery team to a permanent fixture at the ER.

Don’t get me wrong, the strides Utah has taken this season have been impressive and it’s hard to complain about the season they’ve had, but injuries have largely derailed them from having as much success as they potentially could have.

That trend continued last week as Utah looked sharp in the first two victories that saw them defeat the Blazers and Timberwolves, however their loss last night to Portland was less than encouraging and ended with more injuries once again, this time to Raul Neto and Gordon Hayward.

Thus Utah’s 2-1 week moved them to 49-31 on the season while I managed to correctly predict the outcome of all three games last week, moving my season prediction record to 53-27. However, it’s worth mentioning that in previewing yesterday’s game, I had high hopes that Utah would indeed come out on top. Unfortunately, my skepticism from earlier in the week turned out to be more accurate.

Now to close out the season, the Jazz find themselves with just two remaining games against the two teams with the best records in the NBA. Given that the Jazz no longer control their own destiny for reaching the fourth seed, they’ll need the Los Angeles Clippers to lose at least one game and the Jazz will likely have to win out if they hope to earn that spot.

But given the competition they’ll face in this coming week, that will be a daunting task. Here’s a look ahead at what the Jazz can expect in the final week of regular season action.