Utah Jazz 2017-18 Week Nine Outlook, Predictions

The Utah Jazz are in for a rough Week Nine as their six-game road trip continues and includes games against the two best teams in the Eastern Conference.

So, this is how the season is going to be isn’t it? Am I the only one that feels like the Utah Jazz are stuck on a teeter-totter? Up and down. Up and down. After going through a stretch where the Jazz lost seven of eight, they bounced back in a big way by winning six straight and seven of eight, six of which were utter blowouts. Now, however, they’ve reverted back to their previous woes by losing three in a row, one by giving up a blown lead and two by getting simply blown off the court.

In other words, Week Eight wasn’t exactly pretty for the Utah Jazz.

Sure, it started out with an ultimate high – the return of Rudy Gobert and a commanding 47-point win over a solid Washington Wizards team. There were concerns that the tandem of Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors would struggle together, but that incredible victory seemed to put those doubts to bed and raise fans’ admiration and respect for Coach Quin Snyder’s genius tenfold.

However, those doubts quickly came flying back to the forefront after Utah dropped their next three games to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets and most recently the Milwaukee Bucks. The first two games were quite understandable as the bout against OKC was a road game on the second night of a back-to-back and the Houston Rockets are simply one of the best teams in the league. However, of the three, the loss to Milwaukee was the most depressing.

This was a team that Utah had throttled just a week before, but hitting the road in the first contest of a six-game trip, the Jazz came out absolutely uninspired and were handily defeated by the Milwaukee Bucks 117-100. The three dismal performances resulted in the Jazz having an even worse week than I had projected. I had pinned them at 2-2, defeating the Wizards and the Bucks, but instead they went 1-3.

That meant that I went 3-1 in my predictions for the week, putting my season record back ahead of the Jazz at 14-13, whereas Utah now finds themselves at 13-14, back below .500 once again.

With the three poor performances, Utah looked almost identical to how they were in their recent stretch of seven losses in eight games. As a result, there have been plenty of scapegoats – Ricky Rubio, Rudy Gobert, Derrick Favors, Rodney Hood or a combination of that group.

Whatever the case may be, Utah needs to adapt and quickly. December doesn’t get any easier and there are still five games left on this road trip. Playing away from Vivint Smart Home Arena has been far from kind to the Jazz as they currently hold a 2-9 record in such games. Luckily, they’ll have three whole days off before their next game in Chicago, so hopefully they’ll be able to make several key adjustments and be much better off in Week Nine.

Here’s a look at what we can expect for the Jazz as their road trip continues with a three-game slate in the upcoming week.