The worst stretch of Jazz basketball in four years

It’s been a long week and a half for the Utah Jazz.

Coming off a fresh, pretty awful loss to another short-handed Nuggets team at home last night, the Jazz have lost five in a row. Five in a row. When is the last time the Jazz lost five basketball games in a row? 1434 days ago. You have to go clear back to the 2015-16 season, which the Jazz finished 40-42 and missed the playoffs. February 25th to March 4th of 2016. If the Jazz fail to pick up a win on Friday at home against the Blazers, it would be the first time since 2014 that they dropped six in a row. It’s not a matter of opinion, or being over-dramatic; This is the worst stretch of basketball in nearly four years.

Not only have the Jazz lost games, but they have lost really, really bad ones five games in a row.

The first loss featured a Rockets team, at home, that was without their two All-Stars James Harden and Russell Westbrook, as well as Clint Capela. The Jazz allowed Eric Gordon to score 50 points, and the Jazz lost by 9.

The second was one the road against a rare non-playoff San Antonio Spurs team, again without one of their main players in LaMarcus Aldridge. Jazz allowed DeMar DeRozan to channell his true midrange mamba, and score 38 points.

The thid was against a Nuggets team without Jamal Murray, Paul Millsap, Gary Harris, and Mason Plumlee. The Jazz gave up a 27-1 run in the third quarter.

The fourth, the Jazz were absolutely torched by Damian Lillard, who scored 51. This was Portland’s second game of a back-to-back.

The fifth, just last night, was the Denver Nuggets at home, who were also on the second game of a back-to-back. They also had 7 active players. SEVEN. The Jazz squandered a 9-point fourth-quarter lead, and lost once again in the final minute.

Wooooooof.

Putting those all down in words made it seem even worse than it was, which was pretty bad.

The loss last night seemed to impact the players more than just an ordinary “bad loss” which I guess is good to see, with the hope of impacting a change of some sort.

With the trade deadline coming in hot this afternoon at 1:00 PM, will Justin Zanik and Dennis Lindsey pull the trigger on a possible trade? With very little flexibility and value in their roster, it’s not likely. But who knows. Trade or not, something needs to change in order for the Jazz to get back to playing winning basketball.

All the Jazz can really do is focus on their next game, which *checks schedule* OH GREAT DAMIAN LILLARD AGAIN??? The Jazz will host the Blazers on Friday night with hopes of ending this forsaken losing streak.