Utah Jazz vs. Toronto Raptors: Keys to remain undefeated at home

Prediction – Jazz 96, Raptors 90

Although the Utah Jazz were far from perfect in their recent win over the Trail Blazers, they did enough to win in a game that I had actually predicted they would lose. In tonight’s contest against the Raptors, I like the match-up and feel like the fact that Toronto is in the last game of a long road trip makes a contest against a hard-nosed Jazz team extremely daunting. Therefore, I’m going to stick with my prediction from my week preview piece and pin the Jazz as winners in this one by a narrow margin of 96-90.

As good as Utah’s defense is, their offense hasn’t looked all that capable of blowing teams out, especially not a high firepower team such as the Raptors. Therefore, even though I think Utah will ultimately grind out a win down the stretch, I believe this game is bound to be a tight one.

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A win tonight would not only keep the Jazz undefeated at home, but it would elevate their overall record to a solid 6-3. Considering all the question marks that faced the Jazz heading into this season, that wouldn’t be a bad start by any means.

And especially given that following tonight’s contest against Toronto the Jazz will play four of their next five at home, they have a great opportunity to gain some ground early and set a phenomenal tone for the rest of the season. Let’s hope they take advantage tonight and get the upcoming stint started out right with a win over a solid Raptors squad.