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.

12/13 Utah at Chicago

6:00 pm MT – AT&T SportsNet/League Pass

Opponent record: 5-20

Season series: Jazz lead 1-0

I’m feeling good about this game for a few reasons. First of all, the Chicago Bulls are pretty much unarguably the worst team in the NBA. They’ve logged just five wins this season giving them the worst record in the NBA despite playing in presumably the weaker conference. They have some guys who play hard but overall, they simply don’t have the pieces to strike fear into any team.

Not only that, but Utah just barely played them a few weeks back and absolutely obliterated them by a score of 110-80. Thus the Jazz’s confidence should be high and despite their road woes, they should be more than well-equipped to outmatch a dismal Bulls team.

Last of all, I like the fact that the Jazz are coming into this game off of three days of rest. Back during Utah’s hottest streak of the season that saw them win six straight, they had two games off to prepare for Milwaukee, then two more days off to prepare for the Denver Nuggets. Both games ended up going overwhelmingly in Utah’s favor as it appeared they got the chance to make adjustments and game plan without Rudy Gobert in the mix.

Now that he’s back, the Jazz will need to once again make further adjustments and it would be great to see them be able to figure out how to best utilize him to get both the offense and defense back to where it was during the six-game winning streak, handily defeat the Bulls to build confidence and then be better prepared for the remaining four road games ahead after that.

While all of that coming together would be nice, regardless of what the following games hold, I see no reason why the Jazz shouldn’t be able to beat Chicago on Wednesday. Sure, the Jazz have been awful on the road and they can’t risk coming out flat-footed against a hungry Bulls team that has won two straight, but the talent is heavily leaning in Utah’s favor.

Therefore, despite some concerning play of late, I fully expect the Jazz to have a mini bounce back game and log an easy victory over the Chicago Bulls to start out the week.

My Prediction: Jazz Win

Final Score: Utah 105, Chicago 88

12/15 Utah at Boston

5:30 pm MT – AT&T SportsNet/League Pass

Opponent record: 22-5

Season series: Tied 0-0

The Utah Jazz will experience quite a turnaround from Wednesday to Friday as they’ll go from playing the worst team in the Eastern Conference to the best team in the Eastern Conference when they visit the Boston Celtics. Of course, this game would have had a lot more bearing for Jazz fans had Gordon Hayward been healthy and active for the contest, but you can still bet that this Jazz team will have a massive chip on their shoulders when going against the team that stole away their All-Star last summer.

Unfortunately, getting the better of the Celtics is going to be far from an easy task. Despite being without Gordon Hayward for all but the first few minutes of the season, mastermind head coach Brad Stevens has had his Boston team absolutely firing on all cylinders. Kyrie Irving has been sensational and the Celtics’ young guns have very much lived up to and surpassed expectations.

And their conference-leading 22-5 record has absolutely been indicative of their play. The Celtics boast the best defensive rating in the league of 99.4 and are holding opponents to the fewest points per game at just 97.5. Considering how much Utah’s offense has struggled even against middle-of-the-road defenses, this is likely going to be a very scary match-up.

Boston’s offense hasn’t been quite as good as its defense, but it’s still been very much prolific enough to lean on the defense and outscore opponents with ease. Given Utah’s offensive issues, particularly during their recent three-game losing streak, I have a hard time seeing them beating a stingy Boston defense on the road. The Jazz have lost to the likes of the Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns on the road, so overcoming those woes in Boston seems like a pipe dream.

As nice as it would be to see Utah earn a bit of a revenge victory over the injured Hayward’s new Boston team, I am far from confident that such will be the case and predict that the Celtics will win this one quite handily.

My Prediction: Celtics Win

Final Score: Boston 108, Utah 87

12/15 Utah at Cleveland

5:30 pm MT – AT&T SportsNet/League Pass

Opponent record: 19-8

Season series: Tied 0-0

You didn’t think the week could possibly get easier, did you? Well, if you did, you were certainly wrong. One night removed from playing the team with the best record in the Eastern Conference, the Jazz will go on to play the team that is arguably the best team in the Eastern Conference (despite having a worse record than the C’s) and certainly has been the hottest.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have once again overcome some early woes and are now looking like the best team in the East. They recently put up a 13-game winning streak that was only just snapped by the Indiana Pacers in a thriller on Friday, but then bounced back on Saturday to beat a tough Philadelphia 76ers team. With the win, the Cavs have won 14 of their last 15 which has put them comfortably in second place in the East and rapidly catching up to the Boston Celtics.

Is anyone surprised at Cleveland’s so-called turnaround? With the legendary LeBron James leading the charge, we had to all know that their ascension back to the East’s upper echelon was imminent and with James playing some of the best basketball of his career, there’s no questioning that his Cavaliers team is going to be tough for anyone to beat. They’ll be especially tough to beat for a Utah Jazz team that’s been awful on the road and will be playing on the second night of a back-to-back.

The Jazz have a few guys they can throw at LeBron and I’m excited to see how new Jazzman Thabo Sefolosha does against him in a Utah uniform, but overall there’s going to be little the Jazz can do to stop James and his stalwart team. LeBron’s far from the only one who has been playing well for Cleveland of late as they’ve benefited from strong performances from Kevin Love and Dwyane Wade during their hot stretch as well.

Therefore, as this contest will pair one of the hottest teams in the league in the Cavs with a team that’s in a bit of a rut in the Utah Jazz that also happens to be quite outmatched by LeBron and Co., I’m expecting a second straight loss for Utah in Saturday’s bout.

My Prediction: Cavaliers Win

Final Score: Cleveland 112, Utah 98

Next: Utah Jazz vs Milwaukee Bucks: Road trip starts out flat

Thus, as painful as it is to say, I’m expecting the Jazz to remain under .500 after the conclusion of the week as I’m pinning them to go 1-2, which would bring them to 14-16 heading into Week 10. While it would be nice to see them earn a big statement win over Boston or Cleveland, with the way those two teams have been playing and considering how bad Utah has looked in their recent slump, such an outcome seems almost unfathomable.

We all knew that the month of December was likely going to leave the Jazz battered, so quite honestly a 14-16 record through this stretch wouldn’t be absolutely horrific. However, if the Jazz can’t find a way to beat the Bulls and instead fall to 13-17, that could almost be considered a new rock bottom for the season.

Fortunately, just as I can hardly fathom a win over Boston or Cleveland, I have a really hard time seeing Utah’s woes being so great that they can’t overcome the Bulls. They’ve surprised me before, though, so of course nothing can be taken as a guarantee.

The fact of the matter is that the following week doesn’t get any easier for the Utah Jazz by any means, so any sort of confidence or improvements they can muster this week will be absolutely vital as they look to stay afloat through the toughest month that any team faces this season.