Utah Jazz vs Minnesota Timberwolves: Game Thread

The Utah Jazz are hosting the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight in Vivint Arena. Last time out, the Jazz came away with a 136-104 road victory. This time out, the T-Wolves will attempt to avenge that crushing loss, but will do so without the services of seven players from their roster.

Patrick Beverley, Anthony Edwards, Josh Okogie, Taurean Prince, Karl-Anthony Towns, Jarred Vanderbilt and McKinley Wright IV are all in health and safety protocols tonight.

Minnesota had been able to string together a four-game winning streak despite players trickling into health and safety protocols, with sins over the Trail Blazers, Nuggets, Lakers and Mavericks. But the T-Wolves lost the latter end of its back-to-back matchups with Dallas in their last game to snap that streak. Minnesota had Towns up until Tuesday, but he’s now out for tonight’s game.

The Jazz meanwhile are missing zero players due to COVID-19 and should be at effectively full strength. The only players on Utah’s injury report — Udoka Azubuike (ankle) and Malik Fitts (shoulder) — are non-rotation players.

With that injury imbalance, and the fact that Utah is the better team on paper anyway, ESPN’s matchup predictor gives the Jazz a 90.2 percent chance to win this game. Hopefully that’s not a jinx.