Utah Jazz 2017-18 Week 12 Outlook, Predictions

The Utah Jazz will look to bounce back from a tough month of December by getting the first week of January started off on the right track.

With 2017 coming to a close, the Utah Jazz will look to turn a new page and get 2018 started off right. They’ll need to improve in many ways if they are to dig themselves out of the five games under .500 hole that they’ve dug themselves into, but the statement win over the Cleveland Cavaliers to wrap up the tough month of December could very well prove to be just the springboard that they need to do just that.

However, even though the Jazz ended the week and the month on a win, Week 11 wasn’t exactly kind to them. Prior to beating the Cavs, they lost in blowout fashion to both the Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets. I was pretty much dead on in my prediction last week as, even though I picked all three games individually as losses, I stated that I’d be surprised if Utah went 0-3 and just wasn’t sure which one would end up being their win.

Thus, they ended up going 1-2 as I suspicioned they might. Since I picked each game as a loss, though, I went 2-1 for the week, raising my predictions record to 18-19 on the year, which is significantly better than Utah’s 16-21 mark.

Nevertheless, we all knew last month was going to be rough, and I expect Utah to do much better in January than they did in December, which saw them go just 5-10. To do so, though, it will be critical for them to build off of the momentum from their recent win over Cleveland and get off to a fast start.

They’ll start off the week with a single game at home on Wednesday against the New Orleans Pelicans then head out on a four-game road trip with the first two contests of that stint taking place during Week 12. The first road contest will be on Friday against the Denver Nuggets for the last time this season, then the next will be on Sunday against the Miami Heat.

The Jazz are obviously fresh off a beat-down at the Pepsi Center in which Denver thoroughly decimated them, and lost to the Miami Heat in an ugly bout at home earlier in the year. Therefore, especially considering how poorly the Jazz have played on the road, they’ll need to undergo a major turnaround this month if they’re to find success in those two contests and moving forward.

Let’s dive in a little deeper to each of the three match-ups that the Jazz will face as they head into Week 12 of the 2017-18 season and draw ever so near to the halfway point of this year’s campaign.