Utah Jazz vs. Orlando Magic: Building momentum for the road trip

The Utah Jazz will look to make it three wins in a row and set the tone for an important week ahead as they host the Orlando Magic tonight.

The Utah Jazz have re-initiated a nice little win streak with consecutive wins over the Minnesota Timberwolves and Sacramento Kings. The pair of victories have now earned the Jazz 14 wins in their last 16 games, but alas, due to the incredible competitiveness of the Western Conference, they haven’t budged from their 10th place spot.

That means that every game coming up will be absolutely vital if the Jazz are to ultimately force their way into the playoffs. And unfortunately, they have a relatively tough week ahead as the final trio of games during the week make up a three-game road trip.

Luckily, the Jazz start off the week at home tonight against a lackluster Orlando Magic team, though, so they have a great chance to further get back in a groove and build up some momentum for the upcoming road trip. Despite some sloppy moments in Sacramento, their offense seemed to jive better than it had in previous games since the All-Star break, so hopefully it’s a sign of them getting back on track.

Still, their three-point shooting in that game (34.4 percent) and turnovers (13) weren’t exactly much to write home about, so there’s room for improvement. The Jazz will need to be on point in both those areas against Orlando this evening.

The Magic have had an absolutely dismal season as they sit at just 20-43 on the year, but they are riding a two-game winning streak that has seen them play quite well, and they have plenty of players that can get hot and cause issues for the Jazz. Principal among them are the Magic’s two leading scorers Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier.

Gordon is putting up 18.2 points per game this year and has played great in Orlando’s pair of victories in the month of March at 20.5 points on 51.9 percent shooting from the field to go along with 10.5 rebounds. He’s already been highly sought after as an impending restricted free agent, so you can bet that with a potential hefty pay check hanging in the balance, he’ll be highly motivated to finish out the year strong.

Fournier has been consistently solid throughout the year at 18 points per game on 46.1 percent shooting from the field and 38.3 percent from deep. He’s quite the dead-eye from behind the arc and if left unchecked can certainly catch fire and cause problems for opposing teams.

Last of all, Mario Hezonja had a nice run in February and has been playing pretty good ball lately. During that month, he put up a season-high 15.5 points per game on 46.2 percent shooting from the field and a solid 40.4 percent from three-point land. He hasn’t progressed as rapidly as the Magic might have hoped, but Hezonja is starting to get comfortable and establish himself as a solid role player.

And while Magic brass may prefer that the team falter down the stretch to earn a better spot in the draft order, head coach Frank Vogel doesn’t operate that way. Without a doubt, he’ll instill a never-back-down mentality in his guys and push them to fight to the bitter end. With little to lose, this 20-win Magic team is quite dangerous despite being less than formidable.

Nevertheless, barring a putrid effort or lack of focus from the Jazz, I have a hard time believing that they’ll fall short in this one. They dominated the Magic in Orlando in the season’s prior meeting, earning their second biggest victory of the year, a 40-point blowout.

The Magic have a few effective weapons, but have a lackluster bench and have been awful on defense this year. They rank just 27th in the league in defensive rating at 108.8, 26th in opponent points per game at 110 and 26th in opponent field goal percentage at 47.3 percent.

They’re decent at defending the three-point line with an opponent three-point percentage of 36.5 percent, good for 16th in the league, and considering Utah’s struggles behind the arc of late, this is an area where the Jazz will have to be careful.

Nevertheless, even if the threes aren’t dropping as has seemed to be the case of late, the Jazz should be plenty well-equipped to overpower an overall weak Magic defense. And unless one or more of the aforementioned trio of Orlando players goes off in a big way, Utah’s staunch defense should keep them well protected on the other end of the court.

No game is a ‘gimme’ in the NBA, so the Jazz can’t get complacent, but between having a potential playoff bid at stake, playing on their home court and having an overwhelmingly deeper and more talented team than the Magic, tonight’s contest should very well end up in Utah’s favor. I suspect that they’ll come out on top in commanding fashion, getting back to their pre-break ways and significantly building their confidence for the tough three-game road trip ahead.

Prediction – Jazz 108, Magic 97

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After tonight’s bout, things get much tougher for the Jazz as they’ll face a road contest against the surging Indiana Pacers on Wednesday, a challenging contest against the grinding Memphis Grizzlies on Friday then a Western Conference showdown against the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday.

Nearly every game feels close to a must-win at this point, so it will be vital that the Jazz set the tone for the rest of the week with a big win over Orlando this evening.