Utah Jazz 2017-18 Week 10 Outlook, Predictions

The Utah Jazz will wrap up their daunting road trip and enjoy a brief two-game home stand in their tenth week of the 2017-18 season.

Well, last week certainly didn’t go quite how I would have imagined for the Utah Jazz. Utah came into the week on a three-game losing streak, but were fortunate enough to have three days off to prepare for what had largely been a hapless Chicago Bulls team in a contest that many believed would snap Utah’s losing streak.

Instead, the Jazz laid quite the egg in Chicago and dropped a very winnable game to the Bulls to make it four straight losses. In the Bulls’ defense, they’ve been playing quite well all of a sudden, earning five consecutive wins, and are undefeated since Nikola Mirotic returned to action. Still, it was a disappointing loss given the circumstances and after dropping that game, it was starting to look like the Jazz would put up a winless week considering the caliber of opponents they’d face.

However, despite losing both Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors in a matter of minutes against the Boston Celtics, they went on to earn their most impressive victory of the season, defeating Boston by a score of 107-95. The following game, although Utah didn’t end up coming out on top, they truly played very well as they were able to hang right with the Cleveland Cavaliers for the entire contest.

If they had played like they did against Cleveland during their previous four-game losing streak, at least two of the losses would have most certainly been reversed.

Nevertheless, Utah still went just 1-2 on the week, dropping their record to 14-16. I had predicted the Jazz to go 1-2, but figured the win would come against Chicago instead of Boston, so I likewise went 1-2, maintaining my slight lead over the Jazz with a projections record of 15-15, which has me solidly at a .500 record.

The Jazz will likewise look to battle their way back to a .500 record, but it won’t be easy given the tough slate ahead as the daunting month of December continues. The Jazz will wrap up their six-game road trip by visiting the Houston Rockets on Monday and the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday. From there, they’ll return home to host the San Antonio Spurs on the second night of a back-to-back in Salt Lake on Thursday.

Finally, to wrap up the week before a slight break for Christmas, the Jazz will host the Oklahoma City Thunder once again on Saturday, marking the third time they’ll face them this month and the final time of the season.

Obviously, none of those games are easy by any stretch of the imagination, so if the Jazz hope to gain some ground this week and look to end the month strong, they’ll need to maintain the energy and effort that they played with against Boston and Cleveland. Let’s dive in with a closer look at each of the four contests the Jazz will face in the tenth week of the 2017-18 season.