The Utah Jazz have played much better of late and will look to carry that momentum over into the seventh week of the 2017-18 season.
The Utah Jazz showed some significant signs of life in their sixth week of the 2017-18 campaign as they bounced back from a disappointing loss to the Philadelphia 76ers to go on to blow out both the Chicago Bulls (110-80) and the Milwaukee Bucks (121-108) in consecutive contests. Utah’s offense was firing on all cylinders in both games and the Jazz finally played with some much-needed energy.
Hopefully those pair of consecutive victories, the first such since nearly a month ago, will serve as a sign of good things to come and not just an anomaly. The win over Milwaukee was easily one of the most fun wins of the season, but it’s unlikely that Utah is able to replicate their hot shooting from that night (56.8 percent from the field and 56.2 percent from three) on any sort of consistent basis.
Nevertheless, it’s certainly feasible that the Jazz could be turning the corner. After struggling for much of the season so far, they seem to have built some momentum and may have found a bit of a groove. They managed to go 2-1 last week, which is actually the record I had picked them at, but I pinned them as winners in the game against the Sixers and losers against the Bucks, so my projection record was a measly 1-2.
Therefore, the Jazz and I now find ourselves dead even once again at 9-11, which in the case of the Jazz, just so happens to be good for eighth place in the West.
Utah Jazz: Injuries suck, but they’ll actually help for a change in upcoming stretch https://t.co/y4qbMwMfvY pic.twitter.com/u0u4ASEtPN
— The J-Notes (@TheJNotes) November 26, 2017
If they’re able to build off of the success they had in their last two games, then they could be in store for a nice little run in Week Seven. As I mentioned just yesterday, three of Utah’s upcoming four games are against teams that are struggling mightily with injury woes and two of those contests will come to start out the week.
Of course, the Jazz are far from fully healthy either, but their opponents’ issues will certainly raise Utah’s chances at victory. They’ll start off the week by closing out the home stand against the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday. Then they’ll head out on the road for a single game against the LA Clippers on Thursday before returning back home to take on the New Orleans Pelicans on the second night of a back-to-back on Friday.
Each one of those is very much winnable and if Utah can play as they did against Chicago and Milwaukee, they could potentially find themselves above .500 by the end of the week. With that being the case, let’s take a closer look at what they’ll be up against.