The Utah Jazz can’t afford to get complacent against Lauri Markkanen and the lottery-bound Chicago Bulls, winners of back-to-back games.
In NBA circles — and as a general rule in all sports — the term “must-win” gets thrown around entirely too often. If you rewind back to December when the Utah Jazz were struggling to stay above .500, you could probably find a litany of examples of people saying the team needed to win whatever game to get back on track or remain playoff viable with very little effort.
Simply put, short-term thinking usually rules the day among the NBA intelligentsia and one of 82 can often feel more like four or five if you choose to listen to people who like to ride the wave; even in the early months of the season.
That said, if we can agree that the Jazz’s goals over the remaining 10 games of the 2018-19 season are to win 50 games and get home-court advantage in the first-round of the playoffs, then most of their games fall into the must-win category.
Few more so than Saturday night’s showdown with the lottery-bound Chicago Bulls, who enter the bout with a 21-52 record and will be without the services of Otto Porter (shoulder). Meanwhile, Zach LaVine (thigh) will be a game-time decision.
If they both sit, that’s 41.2 points and 4.5 of the team’s 9.4 3-pointers made per game erased from the jump. The Jazz probably can’t afford to lose a game to non-playoff squad missing so much of its punch offensively and still consider themselves legitimately fighting for a higher seed.
Elsewhere on the Bulls’ injury report, Wendell Carter Jr. (thumb), Chandler Hutchison (toe) and Denzel Valentine (ankle) remain out long-term, while Kris Dunn (back) is probable to play in the game.
The Jazz will still have to deal with Lauri Markkanen, though, who put up 32 points, hit 5-of-8 triples, and added 13 boards, five dimes and a block in Chicago’s OT win over the Washington Wizards on Wednesday.
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Derrick Favors will have his hand full chasing the second-year pro around the perimeter; look for Jazz coach Quin Snyder to employ a mob mentality in containing him.
Utah may also be battling a bit of fatigue as they put a bow on their final extended road trip of the season, a four-game Eastern swing that hit a sour note on Thursday with a 117-114 loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
Nevertheless, the Bulls are still over-matched in almost every way in the contest, and have the unfortunate privilege of having to deal with Donovan Mitchell, who has logged back-to-back 30-point efforts and is averaging 28 points per game for the month of March.
PREDICTION: I’m looking for the Jazz to get back on track in a big bad way, with a 114-98 win in the WINdy City.
Tip-off for the game will be at 6 PM MT. Follow along with the live game discussion in the comment thread below and, as always, go Jazz go!