Utah Jazz vs. Cleveland Cavaliers: Keys to finishing the month strong

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SACRAMENTO, CA – DECEMBER 27: LeBron James #23 of the Cleveland Cavaliers goes to the basket against the Sacramento Kings on December 27, 2017 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images) /

Key #1 – Turn up the D

It should come as little surprise that Utah’s defense has been bad of late with their All-NBA Defensive center Rudy Gobert out of commission, but even in his absence, there’s no excuse for how downright awful it has been. Over the last 12 games (of which Utah has lost 10, as I mentioned), the Jazz are giving up 111.9 points per possession, which is dead last in the NBA during that stretch.

To add insult to injury, they’re also posting the league’s worst net rating of -12 during those games. In short, they’ve been horrible on both ends of the floor. However, even without Gobert, it’s the defense that’s most troubling. We all knew that the Jazz could very well struggle to put up points this year, but the hope was that their formidable defense would allow them to stifle teams into losses on many occasions.

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That obviously hasn’t quite worked out as expected and is a big reason why the Jazz are in such a bad slump and have fallen into a 15-21 hole to start out the year. If they’re to turn that around and steal a game against the Cavs, they’ll need to dig deep and reestablish that defensive identity in a big way.

The last time these two teams faced off, Utah shot the ball exceptionally well (especially for them), but they lost because they allowed Cleveland to do exactly the same. The Cavs shot 53.2 percent from the field and 45.5 percent from deep, both of which are spectacular figures. Simply put, that has to change on Saturday night if Utah wants to have any hope of overpowering LeBron James and the Cavs.

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