Utah Jazz: Keys to a series win over the Houston Rockets

The Utah Jazz defeated OKC in the first round of the playoffs, but face a much tougher challenge in the Western Conference Semfinals against the Houston Rockets.

For the second consecutive season, the Utah Jazz have managed to fight their way out of the first round of the playoffs to punch their ticket to the Western Conference Semifinals. However, unlike last year, this time around there’s a new number one seed in town, the Houston Rockets, who the Jazz will face off against in the second round.

The Houston Rockets dominated the regular season, finishing with a record of 65-17 which saw them in control of the top seed in the West for essentially the entirety of the year. Although the Oklahoma City Thunder were a worthy challenger for the Jazz in the first round, the Houston Rockets have so many more attributes that make them a much more formidable foe.

From a fast-paced and often times devastating three-point attack, to a superstar in James Harden, to a much-improved defense and a well-rounded first and second unit, the Jazz will have to play nearly seamless basketball if they are to have any hope of toppling a daunting Rockets squad. They failed to do so in the regular season and were defeated all four times that these two teams faced off.

On the bright side, though, three of those four contests came in November and December, meaning that, much like was stated several times leading up to the series against the Thunder, the Utah team that Houston was most accustomed to seeing isn’t the one they’ll be facing in the second round of the playoffs.

The Jazz have improved drastically since then as they clearly showed in defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round despite losing to them 3-1 in the regular season. With that being the case, the Jazz could actually turn out to be dangerous if they can just find success in these three key areas.