NBA Regular Season 2012-2013: Washington Wizards (9-30) at Utah Jazz (22-19) -- Game Preview

NBA Regular Season 2012-2013, Game 42:

Washington Wizards (9-30) @ Utah Jazz (22-19)

#WASatUTA Game Stream -- Bullets Forever -- Wizards vs Jazz coverage

What is this . . . basketball . . . ? Game night? The Youtah who now?

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The Basics:

Tonight the Jazz finally play a game, our 3rd in 11 nights. The Wizards play their last road game in a five game trip that's seen them lost to the Sacramento Kings, beat the Denver Nuggets, lose to the Los Angeles Clippers, and then come back and beat the Portland Trail Blazers. So, well, it's their turn to lose again, right? The big news is that we'll see Nene and John Wall tonight, so that should be pretty hilario. You know, because Nene has a history of going off on us, and we have trouble with good point guards.

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The always amazing Media Notes produced by the Utah Jazz:

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History:

The Jazz hold a slim lead (47-44) all time against the Wizards / Bullets. We're 26-19 at home and are used to taking care of business, winning 7 out of the last 11 games at home. All of this info is straight from the media notes, that is in the section right about this one. So you should be reading that. There's cool info in it.

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Scouting, Stats, and Stereotypes:

We're a good offensive team, and a pretty offensive team on defense. The opposite is true for the Wiz as they're a Top 10 defense, and near the bottom in offense. Expect a game that appears to be a contrast in styles, but still favors the inside game. How the ball gets inside is the main different -- lots of guys on Washington look like they have the ability to drive on us; while we post people up and work guys off of cuts.

Washington is a very good defensive rebounding team, and, well, that's about it. That's kind of our main point of attack though (the offensive glass), so it's going to be a battle won or lost on the boards tonight.

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Injury Report:

Wizards Injuries --

• Cartier Martin (SF) OUT -- Cartier is out indefinitely with a hyper extended left knee.
• Wizard (Spellcaster) IS ABOUT TO DIE -- Wizard, also, needs food badly.

Jazz Injuries --

• Mo Williams (PG) OUT -- Mo's still out, healing from his right thumb surgery. I have no idea when his cast is coming off. But now that BZ is on twitter, I'm going to try my best to find out.
• Raja Bell (SG) OUT -- something something funny something something.

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Advantage --

Washington has the clear advantage here as we're still playing without our starting point guard, and well, erstwhile starting shooting guard. It hurts that the Wizards are a team that has guys like John Wall, Bradley Beal, and A.J. Price to attack us with.

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The Game:

... starts in like 4 minutes, so I should either quit my job, or learn to blog faster.

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Player Focus:

If Al Jefferson is going to make the All-Star team then he needs to keep building his resume with a solid win tonight. He's gotta play big, get the boards, and take out the trash. I know they've had injuries all year long, but you can't get outplayed by the frontcourt of a 9 win team. 30 and 10 Albert, You can do it!

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X-Factors:

Three point shooting is going to be a big deal for both teams. The Jazz harried Kyrie Irving to a 2/7 night from downtown. We're going to have our hands full dealing with Bradley Beal, Jordan Crawford, Martell Webster, A.J. Price, and company. All of those guys are shooting like crazy from down town. Also to the credit of the Wizards, they're GOOD at defending the three -- and that is becoming an increasingly important part of our offensive attack.

Also, the Wizards cut Shelvin Mack a while ago, and he was college buds with Gordon Hayward at Butler -- so maybe he'll have like a revenge game. Or a "you cut my college team mate, and I'm angry" game.

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Word from the Badguys:

Noope. But if you want, I said a word that's up a the Wizards NBA.com page . . . check it out to see what I look like in scrubs. It's only 2 mins long.

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As an aside:

Either call yourself the Bullets, or call yourself the Wizards and get a better logo. There are tons of wicked awesome looking google image pictures of wizards. None of them are currently on your teams logo or uniform. Pick it up, D.C.!

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Fearless Prediction:

Jazz win, why? Because it's the freaking Wizards, man.