Can Donovan Mitchell out-duel Bradley Beal in tonight’s bout?

Tonight the Utah Jazz host the Washington Wizards to conclude the longest home stand of the season. Utah will need their stars to shine in order to snap the four game losing streak.

*Editor’s Note: From now on these will be replacing the game thread articles previously done on The J-Notes.

Is tonight finally the night the Utah Jazz snap out of their strange funk? Let’s certainly hope so, as Utah is losers of four straight games that happened on their home floor.

If you can recall the last time the Jazz played the Wizards, then you probably remember it was in the midst of Utah’s massive winning run. The Jazz came into D.C fresh off a dominant win against the Charlotte Hornets, but didn’t have their star player Donovan Mitchell as he was battling illness.

Utah was able to rally from a deficit thanks to some good play from Emmanuel Mudiay and Jordan Clarkson. Rudy Gobert dominated the opposing bigs of the Wizards, and they were able to limit Bradley Beal to just 25 points on 25 shot attempts.

This time around things are a lot different for the Jazz, as they will have a healthy Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley ready and available to play. On the downside, speculation is running rampant that there could be chemistry issues, or a lack of trust between the coaching staff and front office.

If the Jazz are able to win any games at this point right now, it will most likely be from dominant play of their star players rather than working as a team sadly. Donovan Mitchell has been on a hot streak lately, scoring 38 points against the Celtics on Wednesday night and 37 against the Suns on Monday.

They will need every bit of Spyda Mitchell they can get, as the Wizards’ star has been tearing it up recently. This feels awfully familiar to the time when the Jazz played the Portland Trail-Blazers twice in two weeks, when Damian Lillard was scorching the league with 40+ points every night.

In his last five games, he’s averaged 38.8 points per game. The way he dropped 50 points in back-to-back games was so good, that the league office had the man drug tested to make sure he wasn’t cheating.

As I mentioned earlier this week, the Jazz have really struggled to contain dynamic guards, especially when they are on hot streaks. What will be key to tonight’s game is if Donovan Mitchell can lock in on the defensive side of the ball, and try to disrupt Beal.

Tonight’s game will be a good measuring stick to how Donovan compares to other stars among the league. He’s already gone head-to-head with Devin Booker and Jayson Tatum this week alone, and has another chance to prove his All-Star selection was no fluke with a great showing against Beal.

Beal was one of the most egregious All-Star snubs this year, as he missed out because of his club’s losing record. The Eastern Conference coaches elected to go with younger breakout stars on playoff teams, specifically Damantis Sabonis and Bam Adebayo making it in.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Beal come in with a chip on his shoulder tonight to prove his doubters wrong by dominating an All-Star in Mitchell. Tonight’s game should be a fun one for sure.

I’m predicting the Utah Jazz win this game by nine points, and finally give their home crowd something to cheer for with a spectacular battle between two elite guards taking place. Final score: 121 to 112.