Utah Jazz: 3 takeaways from a battle with the champions

Coming off a five-game winning streak, the Utah Jazz came up short against the defending NBA Champions last night. Here are three takeaways from the close loss.

The Utah Jazz had won five straight games going into last night. They were getting the Toronto Raptors on the second end of a back-to-back while missing key players with injury. They were back at home, where they owned a record of 21-9.

Despite the tough competition, many thought the Jazz would be able to extend their winning streak to six games. They had a lot going for them, but in the end, that didn’t happen. The Utah Jazz dropped to 41-23 after falling to the Raptors last night.

It was a close game all night long, ending with a final score of 101-92. It was a frustrating game filled with poor officiating (Rudy Gobert‘s ejection still has me flabbergasted) and poor decision making, but I saw some positives to go with the negatives. We’ll get into some of those later.

Despite the loss, the Jazz remained fourth in the Western Conference after the night. They are just one game ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder and three games behind the Denver Nuggets in the standings.

Let’s hope that the Utah Jazz can find some consistency after this and just brush off this loss. Since January, they’ve been rotating between winning and losing streaks. They can’t let this game put them back in a downward spiral.

They have an extremely important game up next. They’ll be in Oklahoma City taking on the Thunder tomorrow night at 6:00 MT. This game could go a long way when it comes to seeding in the Western Conference.

Before we look towards that game, let’s take a quick look at some takeaways from a physical bout with the Raptors last night. It was a weird game that left fans feeling all sorts of ways, to say the least.