Last week was not the greatest of weeks for Jazz fans. The Jazz went 1-2 with two bad losses to teams they probably should have beat. It’s disappointing when they could have created distance between themselves and the Spurs and Clippers and been a game out of 4th.
Now they are just percentage points out of 8th and with a loss tonight they will drop to at least 7th place and a Clippers win they’ll fall to 8th.
Going into the season, I was one who was falling for the hype. I thought for sure the lowest they would place is 4th and that was really me being pessimistic. I really thought they would finish 2nd or 3rd. I thought with the strong finish they had at the end of last season and beating the Thunder in the playoffs. Yes, we have had injuries this season. We got off to a surprisingly slow start. It seems like since January though with the schedule easing up we have been strong. There will always be unexpected wins and losses to balance each other out but this season even that seems a little off. Since the All-Star break its been on full display when we had back-to-back wins against the Denver Nuggets and the Milwaukee Bucks. Unfortunately, the wins were followed up with a bad loss to the Pelicans. The Jazz were up 17 in the 4th and somehow lost, two games later and the lost to the Grizzlies for the 3rd time this season. Those two losses hopefully don’t come back to hurt us in the standings. Ugh, nothing would be worse than facing the Warriors in the 1st round as an 8th seed.
Losing two games you’re favored in can change your outlook really fast in the West. Especially with a game vs the Thunder looming ... pic.twitter.com/0ll1HqhJsG
— SLC Dunk (@slcdunk) March 11, 2019
Good news is we might see Dante Exum tonight! We could really use his defense against Westbrook! Mylo has you covered with the news here: You’ve read this before, Dante Exum is close to returning.
Riley Gisseman from Twitter had this awesome info:
All of the matchup is fairly low sample size. It includes playoffs, but Harden has the most possessions defended by Exum among these players at 70 possessions. McCollum and George were at less than 10 possessions defended by Exum so they weren't included.
— Riley Gisseman (@rgiss11) March 10, 2019
However, as a whole, this is a 241 possession sample size, and it confirms what we tend to see on the court, so it's still very valuable information and when put together becomes a solid sample size.
— Riley Gisseman (@rgiss11) March 10, 2019
What other good news do we have?
Donovan Mitchell is a happy kid (from KSL):
Walk into the Jazz locker room after a game — especially a win — and it will be filled with light-hearted talk, good-natured ribbing and a lot of jokes.
So it’s probably not a huge surprise that Mitchell can’t quite relate to Adam Silver’s recent comments at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference when the NBA commissioner said NBA players are “generally unhappy.”
“I’m the happiest kid in the world,” Mitchell said. “I’m loving my job.”
That is good news for Jazz fans. It brings me hope that we will end this season strong. When Donovan is happy, its contagious. When he is happy it brings the whole team up. If the team is not down on themselves then they can just about beat anyone. I expect good things this week from the Jazz and to finish the season.
The Jazz have four games this week:
I predict the Jazz will go 3-1 with their only loss coming against the Timberwolves.
What is your prediction for the Jazz this week?
Poll
How will the Jazz do this week?
This poll is closed
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48%
4-0
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29%
3-1
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18%
2-2
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1%
1-3
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2%
0-4