Take Care of Business Against Lesser Teams
In Utah’s final 24 games, they’ll face off against 12 teams that currently find themselves below .500, most of which you could make an argument for as being largely done for the season anyhow and possibly looking to tank down the stretch to increase their odds at a better draft pick.
Those 12 games include the Dallas Mavericks twice, the Sacramento Kings twice, the Orlando Magic, the Memphis Grizzlies twice, the Detroit Pistons, the Phoenix Suns, the Atlanta Hawks and the Los Angeles Lakers twice. Honestly, aside from the Pistons who will certainly be pushing for a playoff spot with Blake Griffin among their ranks, none of those teams have any real hope of making the playoffs and, especially if the Jazz can continue to channel their solid play from before the break, it’s not unrealistic to expect Utah to win at least 10 of those 12.
After suffering through that horrendous December schedule when they were saddled with the toughest month in the entire @NBA, the @utahjazz are now blessed with one of the most favorable slates in the whole league going forward.#TakeNotehttps://t.co/ZRRN0mwlOl
— Deseret News (@Deseret) February 20, 2018
If they do that, then they’ll only need to win a pair of games against tougher opponents to reach that 42-win mark. Or if they go 12-0 against these lesser opponents, that in and of itself will do the trick meaning that any additional wins will just be gravy that could propel the Jazz further up the standings.
Sure, that’s not very realistic and they’ll likely drop some of these games as such is the nature of basketball, but they’ll also probably win some against teams ahead of them in the standings for that same reason. The point is, as long as the Utah Jazz can take care of business for the most part, winning around nine of the games against these lesser teams, it will put them in an awesome spot to go .500 the rest of the year and likely end up with that coveted playoff spot.