The Utah Jazz will look to continue their hot play as they visit the Atlanta Hawks on the back end of a back-to-back and the third game of a four-game road trip.
The Utah Jazz took care of business in every way imaginable on Wednesday with a huge 137-116 blowout victory at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks that wasn’t even as close as the final score indicated. Rather than beat their chest in triumph, though, they’ll need to remain focused for a tough contest the very next night.
Straight away after Wednesday’s win, the Jazz will head south to take on the Atlanta Hawks on the back end of a back-to-back. The Hawks’ record doesn’t do much to instill fear in opponents, but they’re still a scrappy young team that deserves major props for the fight they’ve shown all year despite being nowhere close to sniffing the playoffs.
Their young core led by Trae Young and John Collins has been exemplary at how to continue to claw and fight all season long, and that’s led them to upsetting better teams on more than one occasion. If the Jazz hope to keep their win streak alive and climb up the Western Conference standings, they’ll need to avoid that happening to them on Thursday.
Last season, the Hawks got the better of the Jazz in both meetings despite being the worst team in the Eastern Conference. Part of that was former head coach Mike Budenholzer’s genius and familiarity with Quin Snyder, but it was also due to relentless focus on the part of the ATL squad and poor execution on the part of the Jazz.
They found better success against the Hawks in the first meeting this season, and will aim to repeat that success – this time on the road. Luckily, Atlanta isn’t anything to write home about on their home court, as they boast just a 13-22 record there, which is only slightly better than their road record.
The Hawks have lost three straight, and while each defeat has come to worthy opponents, they are far from having momentum. The Jazz, meanwhile, have been cruising of late with five straight wins under their belts. I originally had this contest in Atlanta as a likely loss due to it being on the back end of a back-to-back against a team that has caused Utah some problems.
However, due to how well they’ve played of late, the fact that the starters didn’t log many minutes on Wednesday night and that they seem about as focused as we’ve seen them all year, I’m going to change my tune. The Hawks may have toppled the Jazz twice last year, but this isn’t 2017-18. The Jazz appear out of their funk (against inferior teams at least) and should have every ounce of momentum moving forward.
I believe Thursday’s bout will be much more of a challenge than what we’ve seen on the road trip thus far and that we’ll see a closer score because of it. Nevertheless, I’m picking the Jazz to pick up the victory and earn their sixth straight win.
My Prediction: Jazz 101, Hawks 96
From here, the Jazz have just one more game left on the road trip against the lowly Chicago Bulls before heading home for a nice four-game home stand. Be sure to join the game conversation in the live comment stream found below!