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Last week wasn't pretty for the Utah Jazz. They went 0 and 3 and dropped games to the rejuvenated Derrick Rose led Chicago Bulls, the injured Oklahoma City Thunder, the dastardly Los Angeles Clippers. All three teams are going to the playoffs this year, so yeah. Three losses is bad. Two 15+ point losses and one 2 point loss. It's not pretty. But these are good teams. I may be an apologist here, but I don't think that the Jazz are as poor as their record would indicate. And that will be the macrocosm of each week to week microcosm.
.... but what did the rest of the world think, this week?
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SB Nation's Drew Garrison has the Jazz -6 from last week:
25. Utah Jazz (5-12, Last week: 19)
The Jazz started off the season well, but have won just two of their last eight games and are on a five-game losing streak. Utah has the third-worst defensive rating in the NBA and a middle-of-the-pack offense. Trey Burke is struggling through his sophomore season, averaging 11.3 field goal attempts per game while shooting 36 percent from the field and under 29 percent from deep.
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ESPN's Marc Stein has the Jazz -2 from last week:
24. Utah Jazz (5-12, Last week: 22)
The committee presumes we're speaking for the majority when we say we would like to see more Rudy Gobert than we've been getting. As for your Gordon Hayward update amid Utah's increasing struggles to stay competitive: He's up to four 30-point games after just four in the first 287 games of his career.
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CBS Sports' Matt Moore has the Jazz +0 from last week:
22. Utah Jazz (5-12, Last week: 22)
Welcome to life in the Western Conference. Utah is 3-4 vs. the East, 2-8 vs. the West and has faced on a murderer's row the past two weeks. Young teams just aren't equipped to take on the Warriors, Bulls, and Clippers, and OKC on the road. It doesn't get easier, unfortunately. Gordon Hayward has been a complete, mature, terrific player, but there's just not enough know-how on this team to find wins.
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Sports Illustrated's Matt Dollinger has the Jazz -2 from last week:
24. Utah Jazz (5-12, Last week: 22)
Utah's pair of Australian rookies are eight years apart, but they're experiencing similar struggles. Dante Exum (19) is shooting just 37.7 percent and Joe Ingles (27) is shooting 37.5.
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Yahoo! Sports' Marc J. Spears has the Jazz -2 from last week:
23. Utah Jazz (5-12, Last week: 21)
Gordon Hayward joined Carlos Boozer and Karl Malone as the only Jazz players to record at least four 30-point-plus scoring games through November.
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NBA.com's John Schuhmann has the Jazz -4 from last week:
26. Utah Jazz (5-12, Last week: 22)
Pace: 92.8 (28), Off RTG: 103.5 (17), Def RTG: 108.8 (28), Net RTG: -5.3 (23)
Monday's loss to the Bulls was one of Trey Burke's better games (18 points and 10 assists), but he ended it with a brutal sequence, throwing a behind-the-back pass into Enes Kanter's legs and then failing to get back on D as Mike Dunleavy put in the game-winning tip-in. Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert saw some time together in Saturday's loss to the Clips.
This week: vs. DEN, vs. TOR, vs. ORL
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Yeah.... so a 0-3 (even against really good teams) gives the Jazz a +0, -2, -2, -2, -4, -6 breakdown from the national writers. The average is a power ranking of 24.00. So the Jazz are solidly in the last third of the league, but there are 6 teams worse than them. Fair? Unfair?