Utah Jazz Preseason Week One Outlook, Predictions

10/6 Utah vs. Phoenix

Finally, the Jazz will finish off the week hosting the Phoenix Suns. Utah prevailed over Phoenix in all three regular season meetings last year, although there were some exhilarating games in the mix. The Suns will be returning their electric backcourt of Eric Bledsoe and Devin Booker as well as add the fourth overall pick in the draft Josh Jackson who could very well turn out to be quite the steal.

While there’s no doubting Phoenix’s youth and potential, all in all their lack of experience and proven talent may very well be their undoing. However, given that Friday’s contest will be a preseason match and one or both teams could be hesitant to play their starters for extended minutes, it’s hard to predict just what might happen.

Nevertheless, if it were a regular season game, I would expect the Jazz to come out on top. Therefore, I’ll go ahead and give the same projection here. Phoenix isn’t exactly known for its defense while the Jazz are almost certain to be absolutely daunting on that end of the court, so I expect Utah’s savvy and experienced vets to shut down the Suns’ young guns.

However, given that this will be Utah’s first preseason contest against an actual NBA team, I expect it to be much closer than either of the previous two and will be a great early test for a Jazz team that has a lot to establish and prove.

My Prediction: Jazz Win

Final Score: Utah 98, Phoenix 89

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It’s hard to believe that the start of the NBA preseason is already here, but I couldn’t be more excited about it! Although these games are largely meaningless, I do expect the Jazz to start out 3-0.

More importantly, though, they’ll provide us a chance to learn a lot about this 2017-18 Utah Jazz team and seeing their new roster come together little by little will be absolutely exhilarating to follow during the preseason and all throughout the year.