Utah Jazz at San Antonio Spurs Game Thread: Small Market teams on opposite sides of the mountain

So today is the big day, a battle between two small market teams! The Utah Jazz will visit their big brothers, the San Antonio Spurs, for a game that not many people around Canada and the United States are looking forwards to!

Check out all the fans! (Via here.)

The Jazz dominated the Western Conference in the 90s, and the Spurs have dominated the 2000s, and are still going strong -- they won the title last season. In TWO THOUSAND AND FOURTEEN! Still, these two squads don't have a lot of fans around the US. But the Spurs have more. And they should. They have five championships. But to make you infuriated, there are more Kobe Bryant fans than Spurs fans on this planet. (And thus, representation by population is always going to be a little wonky.)

San Antone is 7th in the Western Conference, and Utah is 13th. The men in silver and black are 14-6 at home, while the Boys in Blue (Green today?) are 7-14 on the road.

The Spurs are mostly healthy, missing only Marco Belinelli. The Jazz are in the same boat, missing only Alec Burks. As a result, we expect that this game will be a better measure of what these two teams are capable of. The Jazz are well well right now, even down a starter; while the Spurs will be playing with two starters who missed their last game.

Starters:

Clearly the Spurs have the advantage where Tony Parker, Danny Green, and Tim Duncan are better than Trey Burke, Joe Ingles, and Derrick Favors respectively. Favors being worse than Duncan doesn't mean he is bad. Favors is still really good. You can argue either way with Enes Kanter and Tiago Splitter. Splitter is a much more heady and capable player within an offense. Kanter is a designated hitter with the Jazz, and their passing stats display this accurately. The big fight is between Gordon Hayward and Kawhi Leonard.

Bench:

There is no contest. Their bench is better. Boris Diaw against Trevor Booker will be fun to watch. But Cory Joseph, Manu Ginobili, and Matt Bonner are better than Dante Exum, Rodney Hood, and Rudy Gobert. Come back to this match-up in five years though.

Advantage:

The home team, Spurs, as a team that just won the ring going up against young lotto fodder will be 'easy' for them.

GO JAZZ GO!