Utah Jazz take on Coach Igor, PHX: Preview and live comment stream

The suddenly struggling Utah Jazz look to get back on the right track against former Jazz assistant Igor Kokoskov and the Phoenix Suns.

When the Utah Jazz were going through some early season struggles and hovering around the .500 mark, many pointed to a soft slate of games to close the 2018-19 campaign as the team’s chance to make hay.

Turns out making hay can be hard to do in the Association, even during the weakest stretch of your schedule.

Immediately after putting themselves into position to compete for a top four seed in the Western Conference, the Jazz suddenly find themselves having lost three games in four tries, with embarrassing Ls to the likes of non-playoff squads like the Memphis Grizzlies and the New Orleans Pelicans.

Now, they sit in eighth place in the conference. Ouch.

On Wednesday, they’ll face another of the NBA’s proverbial basement dwellers in former Jazz coach Igor Kokoskov and the Phoenix Suns. And while the Suns enter the game with the West’s worst record at 16-52, and were beaten badly by the Jazz in February, Utah could find themselves in another dogfight when they take the court at Talking Stick Resort Arena.

Kokoskov’s crew has won five of their last seven games, with victories over the league’s top two teams in the Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors, the latter of which came at Oracle Arena. Devin Booker dropped 37 points in the game and added 11 assists and eight boards to pace his club to the victory.

During the month of March, Booker is now averaging a cool 29 points per game on 48 percent from the floor and 35 percent from distance.

Kelly Oubre has also performed well of late, putting up 19.8 points per over his last 10 games. He put up 22 against the Warriors on Sunday.

Containing both players and the rest of a suddenly surging Suns offense will be paramount to notching another big win against the Suns. Over the aforementioned seven-game span, the Suns have had a top 10 offense league-wide, scoring 112 points per 100 possessions.

Defensively, they’ve been middle-of-the-pack recently, a major improvement for a team surrendering 116 points per contest on the year. Limiting 3-point attempts has been a major factor in the recent turnaround; over their last seven games, the Suns are allowing 30 3-point attempts per game, which is the sixth lowest number in the NBA during that time frame.

Still, this is a team the Jazz should slaughter, on paper anyway. At the least, they’ve got one major weakness that should work in Utah’s favor: for the year, the Suns have conceded more points in the paint than any other squad, allowing nearly 53 points in the paint per contest.

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The Jazz would do well to feed Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors early and often, and Donovan Mitchell should make a concerted effort to attack the hoop.

They also need to exploit Booker’s perimeter defense (or lack thereof). Among players appearing in 50 or more games this season, Booker has the fourth-worst defensive rating in the league at 114.5 (teammate Jamal Crawford is third-worst at just under 115). Phoenix allows 6.8 more points/100 poss. when Booker is on the floor compared to when he sits.

All that said, I cannot stress enough that the Jazz still need to put their best foot forward to win games, even against lottery-bound teams.

I, for one, expect them to do so here.

On Tuesday, Ricky Rubio and Raul Neto were both upgraded to probable for the Suns game. Given their progress and Dante Exum‘s recent return against the Thunder, the Jazz are about as healthy as they’ve been all year. Better backcourt depth and, hopefully, a renewed sense of urgency in the wake of recent letdowns, should go a long way toward a reversal of fortunes.

PREDICTION: Jazz 110, Suns 102.

Tip-off for the Jazz-Suns affair is at 8 PM MT. Fans can participate in active discussion during the game with our live comment stream in the thread below!

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