Utah Jazz Regular Season 2012-2013: End of November Schedule Preview

Utah Jazz Regular Season 2012-2013: End of November Schedule Preview

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The Utah Jazz finish off this month (well, month and 1 day) with six games, set up in two sets of "three games in four nights" jaunts. Of these six remaining games, only two of them are at home. That doesn't mean we should win only two more games. Rather, going 3-3 isn't impossible, and if we're playing as well as we can, it would not be out of the realm of possibility to do even better.

Let's take a look at them:

N.B. The Houston Rockets @ Utah Jazz game started this week, but that game seems like years ago now . . .

Set #1:

• Friday, November 23rd -- Sacramento Kings @ Utah Jazz
• Saturday, November 24th -- Utah Jazz @ Sacramento Kings
• Sunday, November 25th -- No Game
  
• Monday, November 26th -- Denver Nuggets @ Utah Jazz

The first step of finishing this month strong is to play our game against the Sacramento Kings. The Kings didn't do a lot of crazy things this off-season, they're still led by Tyreke Evans, DeMarcus Cousins, Jason Thompson, Marcus Thornton, and John Salmons. They did add Aaron Brooks, so that's good for them because he was already a dude we have trouble with -- and we were already getting torched by Isaiah Thomas and the rest of their guards. The Kings have a lot of talented players, but don't seem like a good team right now. They're 3-8, losing to everyone except the Detroit Pistons, Golden State Warriors -- and last night defeating the Los Angeles Lakers. So, they are unpredictable. Our team needs to be a bit more predictable though, and win both of these games. If we're a playoff team, and not 'a team in the playoffs by default', then we should.

After the home and home series the Jazz get the night off and then host the Denver Nuggets. Denver gave us a humiliating defeat to start the season series. We can' let them run us out of the building. We need to push back and beat them.

Set #2:

• Wednesday, November 28th -- Utah Jazz @ New Orleans Hornets
• Thursday, November 29th -- No Game
• Friday, November 30th -- Utah Jazz @ Oklahoma City Thunder
• Saturday, December 1st -- Utah Jazz @ Houston Rockets

These are three roadies, and while the last two games (OKC and HOU) are the ones you circle on the calendar, we can't afford to drop another in NOR. The Thunder are the West champs, and Houston will be looking for revenge. Those two games are going to be hard; however, I could absolve dropping both of those if the Jazz win the previous four games (vs. SAC, @ SAC, vs. DEN, and @ NOR).

When I previewed the schedule back on July 30th, I felt like the Jazz would be 9-9 after the Houston game. Then when I previewed the "month" (Nov + 1 game in Oct + 1 game in Dec) back on October 31st, I was crazy and said the Jazz were winning 12 games this month. To win 12 the Jazz would have to run the table here. To win 6, they'd have to go 3-3.

I'm going to now say my July prediction was probably more correct than my October one (c'mon man, we were COOKING in preseason!) -- I will accept nothing less than 3-3 on this trip. And I would hope we go 4-2.

After these two sets of three games on four nights are over we should be: 9 - 9