Utah Jazz vs Charlotte Hornets: They call that a Jazz octet

The Utah Jazz moved to 2-0 in their City Edition jerseys, 5-0 in February, and have now won eight straight games after a double-digit defeat of the Charlotte Hornets.

Last time the Utah Jazz went toe-to-toe with the Charlotte Hornets, they did so without All-NBA center Rudy Gobert. What resulted wasn’t pretty — a 99-88 loss to put the team eight games below the .500 mark. After Round 2 on Friday night, a 106-94 win by the Jazz band, Gobert and Co. find themselves on an eight-game winning streak.

This time around, the Stifle Tower was on-hand to patrol down low and it made all the difference in the game. By night’s end, the Jazz had outscored the Hornets 58-30 in the paint and were plus-16 in the rebounding battle.

Gobert was brilliant in his bout with Dwight Howard, scoring 20 points on 7-of-8 shooting, grabbing 11 boards and blocking two shots. Howard, meanwhile, fouled out after just 21 minutes on the floor and a 2-for-7 night from the field.

After missing just one shot against Charlotte, Gobert is now 14-of-15 over his last three head to head meetings with Howard. As impressive as that is, though, he didn’t win the game on his own.

Joe Ingles had one of his best games in a Jazz uniform with a career-high 23 points, five rebounds and five assists. Donovan Mitchell led all scorers with 25 points and chipping in six rebounds and four assists.

What’s seriously impressive is Ingles’ game-high plus-minus of 30 in a 12-point win. An ailing Ricky Rubio left the game with a lot of time left in the second half and Ingles became the playmaker for the remainder of the time he was on the floor, despite sharing the court with Mitchell.

His “point guard” duties were capped off by this emphatic slam-down by Derrick Favors —

https://twitter.com/utahjazz/status/962176452471894021

I also can’t do a Jazz victory recap without mentioning the two highlight reel dunks from Mitchell. Especially with the Slam Dunk Contest coming next weekend.

The first was initiated (obviously) by a Gobert block (what else). It’s a play we can hope is only a foreshadowing of many years of blocks leading to dunks in transition —

The next is a similar dunk where Mitchell simply read the defense, reacted and found an open lane —

So, where does this leave the Jazz now?

Following Friday’s games — the Portland Trail Blazers and LA Clippers notched wins, while the New Orleans Pelicans and Portland Trail Blazers stumbled — he’s how Nos. 5-10 look in the Western Conference standings —

5. Portland Trail Blazers, 31-25 (own tie-breaker)
6. Oklahoma City Thunder, 31-25
7. LA Clippers, 28-25
8. Denver Nuggets, 29-26
9. New Orleans Pelicans, 28-26
10. Utah Jazz, 27-28

The Jazz are now only two games out of the seventh seed, three games from the sixth and three and a half out of the fifth. I’m not suggesting the Jazz will likely end up with the fifth seed, but they do have an easier remaining schedule than all of the other five teams they will be battling.

It’s worth noting that the Blazers, Clippers Nuggets, and Pelicans have the fourth through seventh (in that order) most difficult remaining schedules in the West.

Next up for the Jazz is the Blazers in a game crucial to playoff standings.