Utah Jazz at Denver Nuggets: Keys to winning season series

The Utah Jazz will look to overcome their road woes and win the season series against the Denver Nuggets as they take the court tonight.

As my J-Notes colleague John Keeffer pointed out earlier today, tonight’s contest between the Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets is a big one for the Jazz as they’ll have the opportunity to win the season series with a victory this evening. Although the Jazz find themselves a little ways out of playoff contention at the moment, owning that series win could be instrumental should any tiebreaker situations come into play for playoff seeding.

But before getting too far down that road of qualifying for postseason play, Utah needs to focus on the here and now by figuring out a way to get back on track as soon as possible. Despite a recent exhilarating win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Jazz immediately reverted back to their woeful ways as they dropped a very much winnable game to the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday.

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That’s been essentially the pattern for the Jazz of late as the last time they earned consecutive victories was over a month ago. Unfortunately, getting back to their winning ways and winning the season series against the Nuggets is going to be easier said than done for a number of reasons. Not only have the Jazz struggled of late while the Nuggets have played quite well, but Utah has been abysmal on the road whereas Denver has dominated on their home court.

Thus, several recent trends are going to have to change for Utah to come out on top. In order for them to do just that, they’ll need to excel in the following key areas during tonight’s game.

Key #1 – Win the three-point battle

To begin the year, the Utah Jazz were one of the hottest three-point shooting teams in the league. Unfortunately it seems that, especially of late, they’ve only plummeted from there as they’re now just 12th in the league at 37 percent. That free-fall should come as little surprise considering that the Jazz have shot under 30 percent from three in six of their last eight games and are converting on just 28.6 percent of their attempts from deep during that stretch.

That’s really, really bad, and a big reason why the Jazz haven’t been able to compete of late. In fact, the stark difference in Utah’s three-point percentage in wins vs. losses is absolutely mind-blowing. In victories, they’re averaging 43 percent from deep whereas in losses, they’re shooting just 32.4 percent. Rediscovering their shot from behind the arc will obviously be huge if they hope to win tonight and moving forward.

Meanwhile, although the Denver Nuggets have a worse three-point shooting average than the Jazz overall (36.4 percent, 15th in the league), they’ve certainly been better than Utah recently. And one interesting thing about the Nuggets is that they’ve been pretty consistent in their three-point shooting regardless of the games’ results.

In wins, they’re converting on 37.5 percent of their threes while in losses they’re converting on 35.3 percent. In other words, you basically know what you’re going to get from the Nugs, so the Jazz simply have to be ready to top it. In these two teams’ last contest, Denver thoroughly out-shot Utah from behind the arc (36.7 percent vs. 28.6 percent) while also holding the Jazz to an abysmal 32.1 percent shooting from the field.

Thus, Utah’s only chance for coming out on top this time around may very well be to finally catch fire and find success from three-point land.

Key #2 – Somehow compete on the boards

In my preview of the last Jazz-Nuggets game, I pinned winning the rebound battle as a significant key. The Jazz have been a poor rebounding team all season long whereas the Nuggets have been one of the best, so I knew it would be critical for Utah to seek to reverse that trend. Unfortunately, they didn’t come anywhere close to doing so.

Instead, Denver walloped Utah on the glass, out-rebounding them by a count of 53-42 and beating them on the defensive boards 43-30. Of course, it was pretty easy for the Nuggets to win that battle considering all the shots Utah missed, but that kind of lopsided result is still unacceptable and isn’t going to lead to many wins.

Therefore, although the Nuggets have a clear advantage in the rebounding department based on how well they’ve done it all year, the Jazz need to at least seek to close the gap this time around if they’re going to be able to compete at all with a gritty Denver squad.

Considering how tough offense has been to come by for the Jazz all season long and particularly in the recent contest against the Nuggets, the Jazz need to count on solid rebounding in order to generate extra possessions and easy second chance points. If they’re unable to come through in that area, Denver will more than likely win tonight’s game and tie up the season series in short order.

Key #3 – Slow down Denver’s backcourt

As good as Nikola Jokic is, the Utah Jazz have seemingly done a pretty good job of neutralizing him in many of their recent contests against the Denver Nuggets. However, the last time these two teams met, the Jazz were absolutely punished by Denver’s starting backcourt of Gary Harris and Jamal Murray. Murray finished the game with 22 points on 60 percent shooting from the field and 50 percent from deep while Harris put up 15 points on 50 percent shooting from the field and deep.

It was a putrid offensive and defensive performance by the Jazz which saw Denver’s guards completely outmatch Utah’s starting duo of Ricky Rubio and Donovan Mitchell who combined for just 15 points on 6-of-18 shooting.

And both of Denver’s starting guards have been on an absolute tear of late. Harris is coming off of a 36-point outpouring against the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday. He’s scored 15 points or more in eight of his last nine games and also notched 36 points against Boston less than a month ago. Meanwhile, Murray has been just as good, logging two 30+ point games in the last seven and four additional 20+ point games in his last 11.

In other words, that’s a trend that’s in absolute need of a reversal if the Jazz are to arise victorious tonight. While it might be a bit much to expect Rubio to have any sort of big game given his track record in a Jazz uniform, hopefully Donovan Mitchell will be able to step up big time and supposed sixth man Rodney Hood will be able to shake his recent shooting funk and help Utah find some success off the bench.

Prediction – Nuggets 121, Jazz 103

If you couldn’t tell from my tone in the piece thus far, I’m feeling less than optimistic about Utah’s chances tonight. The Jazz have been too horrible on the road (3-15) while the Nuggets have been just too good at home (13-4). Not to mention, between inconsistent play, streaky shooting and head-scratching rotations, the Jazz have simply looked out of sorts of late. Therefore, I’m picking Denver to win in commanding fashion.

And the Nuggets deserve some credit for how well they’ve played this year even without the injured Paul Millsap. They’re 20-17 on the season and likely well on their way to a playoff spot. The Jazz, meanwhile, are starting to look more and more like a lottery team with each passing week.

Next: Jazz-Nuggets Key Matchup: Donovan Mitchell vs. Gary Harris

However, I guess if there’s one ray of hope in all this, it’s that whenever I get really pessimistic about Utah’s chances is typically right about when they bounce back and post a huge win (see the games at Boston, vs. San Antonio and vs. Cleveland if you need any examples). So perhaps the energy and focus will be there tonight and the Jazz will put up yet another one of their stunning performances to earn a big and much-needed road win.

As nice as that would be, though, unfortunately I’m not counting on it.