Can the Utah Jazz follow Houston’s example and surge up the standings?

At one point this season, the Houston Rockets looked worse off than the Utah Jazz, but they’ve turned things around in a big way. Can the Jazz follow suit after their slow start?

Last season’s Western Conference Semifinals featured an exciting matchup between the Utah Jazz and the Houston Rockets. Although the Rockets managed to easily come away with a victory in five games, many were left wondering just what the future held for what was a surprising Jazz team. After all, had they had starting point guard Ricky Rubio, who had been playing great at the time, for the series, things could have gone differently.

Either way, the Jazz looked like a top team in the West after making it to the second round of the playoffs and many presumed that with internal development, they’d be even better this year.

So far, unfortunately, such hasn’t exactly looked to be the case. Several Jazz players for which there were high hopes that they’d improve have actually regressed thus far including Donovan Mitchell, Ricky Rubio, Royce O’Neale and Joe Ingles. Utah’s lackluster play has them sitting at 12th in the Western Conference, behind several teams that many would have suspected the Jazz were better than at the start of the season.

That’s discouraging, to be sure, and while several have argued quite accurately that the Jazz schedule is set to get much easier in coming weeks, there’s also no denying that they simply need to play much, much better.

However, rewind to just under a month ago to December 8th and Jazz fans may find a little tidbit of information that’s somewhat encouraging. At that time, the Jazz were fresh off a win over the Houston Rockets, while H-Town had just lost three straight bouts. Combine that mini-slump with their slow start and the Rockets were sitting at a dismal 11-14 mark which had them at second to last in the Western Conference.

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that some were panicking about Houston’s prospects for the 2018-19 season considering how dysfunctional they looked and how out-of-sync they had been playing. Yet, fast forward to now, and all of a sudden the Rockets look yet again like a powerhouse and one of the best teams in the league.

Since their loss on December 8th to the Dallas Mavericks just two days after falling to Utah, the Rockets have rattled off 11 victories in 12 games to surge to a commanding 22-15 record, good for fourth in the West. And based on how James Harden, who’s yet again playing at an unbelievable MVP level, and the rest of his team looked in Thursday’s win over Golden State, I’d say the Rockets are just getting started. They’ll likely continue to climb until they’re back near or at the top just as they were last year.

This impressive run is coming on the heels of what every NBA fan would consider a pathetically slow start. Meanwhile, the Utah Jazz’s current 18-20 start could also be categorized the same way – pathetically slow. However, Utah’s second-round foe has figured out a way to quickly turn things around and go from 14th in the West to 4th in what’s been less than a month and has felt like the blink of an eye. Can the Jazz now get things together themselves and undergo a similar run?

Over the course of their next 14 games, they’ll take on eight teams that are below .500. After they finish up their current four-game road trip in Milwaukee on Monday, they’ll play seven of their next eight on their home court. In all, while there’s certainly some challenges along the way, January, February and March are much lighter for the Jazz than what they’ve faced so far.

So can they do it? Can they turn the tide and wedge their way back into the mid to high playoff conversation just as the Rockets have done in a matter of weeks? Well, especially considering how Jekyll and Hyde the Jazz have looked this season, you’d have to be psychic to know that answer. From one game to the next the Jazz will go from looking like a powerhouse getting their mojo together to looking like they’ve forgotten how to play basketball entirely.

Not only that, but unlike the Rockets, they don’t have the luxury of having one of the greatest players in the game on their team as Houston has in James Harden. Harden’s streak of five games of 40 points or more has been unbelievable and his overall play during this fantastic stretch has been mind-blowing. Unfortunately, the Jazz with their lackluster offense have no one on their team that can explode in such a fashion and carry that kind of load to propel the team.

Thus, considering that and the fact that the Jazz have simply looked so discombobulated this season, I have a hard time believing they’ll be able to replicate a run quite like the Rockets. That said, I also do like their chances of improving their record significantly over the course of the next three months and finding their way back into postseason contention.

To conclude last season, many thought the Jazz would be right alongside the likes of the Rockets and Warriors in terms of being a daunting foe in the West. So far, according to record anyway, that simply isn’t looking like it will be the case. Nevertheless, I believe Utah’s odds of finishing somewhere between eighth and fifth in the West are still relatively solid.

Even doing that will obviously take some degree of turnaround, though. And whether the Jazz hope to copy what the Rockets have done and go on a momentous run, or simply turn things around enough to qualify for the postseason, the fact of the matter is they had better get started right away.

Any further delay could very much put their playoff hopes in jeopardy for good.