Utah Jazz-Houston Rockets: Who will heat up in frigid SLC?

In the ultimate battle of underachievers, Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz will host James Harden and the Houston Rockets in frosty Salt Lake City.

Upon landing in Salt Lake City ahead of his team’s Thursday bout with the Utah Jazz, Houston Rockets star James Harden was taken aback by the temperature. Frigid is the first word that comes to mind and, for his part, the 2018 NBA MVP wasn’t feeling it.

Tweeted Harden —

Unfortunately, it’s quite normal, Mr. Harden. Meanwhile, the Jazz-Rockets showdown is anything but.

Despite entering the 2018-19 campaign with massive expectations, Harden’s Rockets and Donovan Mitchell‘s Jazz both find themselves languishing near the bottom of the Western Conference Standings. At times, both teams have been as cold as that Rocky Mountain air, making this game the ultimate battle of underachievers.

Sure, the conference is deeper than it has ever been and neither squad is far from the top eight in terms of games back, but the bottom four of the table is never where you want to be.

With that being the case, you may ask yourself, well, how did we get here?

The Jazz’s problems have been well-documented on The J-Notes — 3-point shooting and defense immediately come to mind. As it happens, the Rockets have had their own struggles in those same areas.

After finishing with the league’s seventh-best defense last season, Houston’s D has struggled even more than Utah’s. The Rockets are conceding 111.7 points per 100 possessions, sixth-worst in the NBA and a drop-off of more than six points compared to last season.

Meanwhile, their 3-point percentage is down two points to 34.2 percent, a bottom-10 mark league-wide.

Curiously, the same-ish results these teams have produced are the consequence of vastly different approaches to team-building.

The Jazz opted for continuity, keeping everyone but Jonas Jerebko in the fold. For his part, Rockets GM Daryl Morey chose to shake things up, bidding adieu to Trevor Ariza, Luc Mbah a Moute and Ryan Anderson and entering into an ill-fated experimentation with Carmelo Anthony.

The Jazz and Rockets probably ought to have flip-flopped those strategies.

In any case, this feels like a big game for both sides. When the Jazz and Rockets played one another in October, it was supposedly a bout between two of the West’s elite. Now, both teams are determined to show they can get back into that conversation.

In the end, though, who will be the one to heat it up in frigid SLC?

I, for one, like the Jazz band. Mitchell is coming off of one of his most efficient performances of the season, having scored 20 points on 13 shots in Tuesday’s win over the San Antonio Spurs. He’ll likely have extra motivation to keep it up against a Rockets squad that features his good friend Chris Paul at the point.

Also — since the Jazz finally decided to shake things up by adding Kyle Korver to the mix, they’ve seemingly remedied their 3-point woes. Going back to when Korver officially joined the team, the Jazz have hit on 46 percent of their attempts from distance. Against the Spurs, they made a team-record 20 triples.

While I don’t expect another record-breaking performance, I fully anticipate Mitchell and Utah’s 3-point shooters to push the team back to .500 here.

Prediction: Jazz win 112-105.

The Jazz and Rockets will be on national television courtesy of TNT on Thursday night. Tip-off will be at 8:30 PM MT.