The bad news is that when your team gets swept by the Washington Wizards, your season is usually over. The good news is that our season is, honestly, going to be over very, very soon . . .
Former Operation 82 previews: October, November, December, January, February, and March
Last Month Review:
I thought that we fans were seeing something like the light at the end of the tunnel when the Jazz were competing against the Boston Celtics, at the end of February. Instead of really doing anything positive (outside of the stealth tanking where people just assume we’re losing because we are a bad team – we’re not a bad team), the Jazz followed up a 3 and 9 February with a 4 and 10 March. The few wins were against the Sacramento Kings (sans Tyreke Evans), the Toronto Raptors (by a last second shot), the Philadelphia 76ers (in a revenge game at home), and the Minnesota Timberwolves (in a revenge game at home). There isn’t much to really say other than: our defense last month surrendered 108.2 points per game. Yes. At the risk of playing to biased and incorrect stereotypes – the Jazz pulled a France on defense. Hard to win games when you are playing that ‘hard’ on defense. The Jazz lost every one of the ‘Big Games’ from last month – falling to Nuggets, Knicks, Bulls, Hornets and even splitting the revenge games against the Sixers and Wizards.
‘Lo how the mighty have fallen . . .
Overview:
Total Games: 7
Home Games: 3
Road Games: 4
vs. Western Conference: 7
vs. West Playoff Teams (from last season):6 (Los Angeles Lakers x2, Portland Trailblazers, San Antonio Spurs, New Orleans Hornets, and Denver Nuggets)
Back to Back Sets: 0
3rd Game in four nights: 0
4th Game in five nights: 0
5th Game in seven nights: 0
Longest Home Stretch: 1 game
Longest Road Trip: 2 games in 3 nights (x2)
Nationally Televised Games: 3 (vs Lakers on April 1st, vs Blazers on April 7th, @ Spurs on April 9th)
Big Games:
Sunday, April 3rd: @ Sacramento Kings
Amar, you missed the game before this hosting the Lakers on TV. No I didn’t. We’re not in their league. And we haven’t been in their league for a number of years. It’s not a mutually big game for both teams, so I’m not even going to count it as a big game for us this year. Anyway, Sacramento is the lone team that we should be favored to win against out of these last seven games. It is (according to their regular season schedule) their third last home game at Arco Arena for this season – and potentially forever. It should be emotional for their fans. It’s not going to be easy for us as we will still be without Andrei Kirlenko, Devin Harris, and others.
Monday, March 11th: @ New Orleans Hornets
They should still beat us even without David West. It’ll be fun to watch this game because over the last few months we’ve gone to really improve our dribble penetration and should pose a challenge for Chris Paul. One of the two previous statements is true, and one is false. It will be nice for Millsap to play in his home state. Hope he gets cooking.
Wednesday, April 13th: vs. Denver Nuggets
So our season ends against the team that a) we started our season with , and b) the team whose season we ended last year. Do the Jazz win this one for the fans? I don’t know. I remember back when we used to count home games as home wins without having to think about it. Now? Now the Jazz are the Timberwolves at a higher elevation home court.
Prediction:
I suck at predictions, and the Jazz defy description. I think we’ll lose every game. So that means the Jazz will win 3 of them. How do YOU think we’ll do?