The Utah Jazz will enjoy three straight home games during their fourth week of the 2017-18 season that should help them significantly bolster their record.
The Utah Jazz’s third week of NBA action didn’t exactly go quite as I had expected. About the only game that turned out somewhat as I thought it would was the win over the Dallas Mavericks, but even that game was surprising as the Jazz got behind early but managed to fight their way back with a strong second half.
The next three, however, were much different than I had predicted. I figured that Portland would be too much for the Jazz particularly with their solid backcourt duo of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. However, Utah was able to hold them in check, especially McCollum, and managed to grind out an impressive overtime win.
Then in the bout against the Toronto Raptors, I expected the Jazz to ride their momentum to a win against a team that was playing its sixth straight road contest. Nevertheless, the Raptors held fast and ended up making the Jazz look like the ones that were fatigued as Utah’s offense largely struggled to click and they couldn’t find a way to best Toronto.
Last of all, while I had predicted that the Jazz would indeed fall to the Houston Rockets, remaining winless on the road, I could have never foreseen the fashion in which they fell. Utah played quite well against Houston last season, but they looked completely outmatched this time around as they were blown out by 27 points. This of course was largely due to an unfathomable night from James Harden which saw him score 56 points on 19-of-25 shooting.
56 points on 25 shots.
— NBA (@NBA) November 6, 2017
James Harden sets a new career-high, guides @HoustonRockets past @utahjazz 137-110. pic.twitter.com/vniGNfQrRt
But that wasn’t the only reason the Jazz fell, it also was due to the fact that their offense struggled with consistency (despite putting up 110 points) and their defense, not only on Harden but on the Rockets as a whole, looked absolutely lost and flat-footed. In short, the Jazz looked unprepared and were embarrassed in the Toyota Center.
With all of that panning out as it did, for the second straight week the Jazz’s record of 2-2 matched perfectly with my predictions record, since I correctly picked the Mavs win and the Rockets loss but mixed up the Blazers and Raptors results. Therefore, both the Jazz and myself remain at 5-5 on the year heading into the fourth week of NBA action.
This upcoming week will see Utah play three games of a four-game home stand which should help them bolster their record even further. They’ve been exceptional in Salt Lake City where they’ve gone 5-1 on the season and given that their opponents this week aren’t overly daunting, they should be in good shape.
Tomorrow they host the Philadelphia 76ers, who just announced that Joel Embiid will not play, then they’ll go on to play the Miami Heat on Friday and the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday in the second game of a back-to-back. With a trio of winnable games slated ahead, let’s take a look at how the Jazz should fare.