#5. Return to Clipperland
Tuesday, October 24 – Utah Jazz at Los Angeles Clippers
It’s no secret that the playoffs have not been kind to the Los Angeles Clippers in recent years. And as fortune would have it, our very own Utah Jazz were the last team to knock them out of contention right out of the gates by earning a 4-3 first round win over the Clips. With that being the case, Clipper fans more than likely have a decent amount of contempt for the Jazz, especially considering that Utah earned three of its four playoff victories right inside of the Staples Center.
Thus the Clippers will very likely be out for revenge when the Jazz visit LA on the road for the first time since crushing them in Game 7 of last year’s first-round playoff series. Of course, both teams lost star players in Gordon Hayward and Chris Paul, so it will be quite a different look for both squads. However, there’s no question that their postseason battle will still be fresh in one another’s minds.
Even though the Clips brought in a relatively nice haul in the trade for Paul, there’s no denying that his departure marks the end of an era in LA – an era in which the Clippers, with exception to the 2017 playoff series, largely dominated the Jazz. As the late October match-up kicks off a new Hayward-less and Paul-less era of the Jazz and Clippers match-up, it will be exciting to see who draws first blood and gains the upperhand moving forward.
The fact that the game is early in the season for both teams – just the fourth for the Jazz and third for the Clippers – will only help to further augment the intensity of the bout as well.