The History of the Jazz Vs. Spurs in the NBA Playoffs

If you are a super duper nerd who has no life you a) already know that the Denver Nuggets beat the Oklahoma City Thunder tonight; and that means b) The Utah Jazz are locked into the #8 spot, and will be playing the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs. The Jazz are severe underdogs as the Spurs had their way with every team in the league. And yes, the Utah Jazz are in that league, and we got handled. Like it was prom night. And Gregg Popovich said he loved us. Or something to that effect.

Anyway, the Jazz have seen the Spurs in the NBA playoffs before, and we've been the lower seed the majority of the time too. But you know what? The Jazz historically have handled the Spurs in the playoffs. (Of course more of that probably has to do with how Karl Malone would punk David Robinson in the 4th quarter before Tim Duncan joined the Spurs)

Here's the full playoff history of these two teams in the head to head:

(Note: Back in the olden days the NBA 1st round series was a best of 5 games. You know, it was back when the NBA ruled the NBA, and not TV deals and big money marketing contracts...)

The Jazz were the underdog three times and won three times. And over all the Jazz have 12 wins, and the Spurs 8. That's a 3 to 2 advantage for the Jazz. Of course, we don't have Jerry Sloan or John Stockton anymore. But they still have Pop and company. The most recent meeting was a 4-1 "education" in the WCF. It would be silly to expect us to wipe the floor with the Spurs, But by the same token, we're still the Utah Jazz. We have pride. And beyond outside shooting, our half court offense and legion of big bodies were built for playoff basketball.

Now you know the history. We can only speculate on the future. It's up to our Jazz to write the present. And it starts -- most likely -- on NBA TV. Because the #1 seed gets pushed to the least popular station because the current league is run by marketing money. Boo! Boo to you NBA league office!