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Tonight the Utah Jazz will continue with their one-sided rivalry against the Los Angeles Lakers. It's true, we Utah Jazz fans really want to beat LA as much as possible. After a few playoff heartbreaks and decades of tough play we believe we are rivals to the Lakers. If you ask a Lakers fan who their rivals are they are more likely to rattle off a list of teams they have played in the NBA Finals, and not a team they played in the first and second round of the playoffs. Touche. It is a significantly rivalry to us, though, like X the Exterminator and Harvey Birdman. (Such a random reference) Overall the Utah Jazz have defeated the Lakers 65 times, and lost to them 104 times. That's just the regular season numbers, in the playoffs the Jazz win some games, but aren't leading in the series head to head at all there either. LA is good, but for our collective hatred of them, they just aren't that good in Utah. And for the Jazz, that is good enough.
Utah has a slim lead on LA in Utah, winning 44 times and losing 40 times. Tonight could give the Jazz a +5 overall in the #801 -- which is such a small thing to be happy about. But I guess that makes us small people, LET US HAVE THIS, LAKERS! LET US CONTENT OURSELVES WITH BEATING YOU WHEN YOU ARE DOWN!!
Tonight's game isn't going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination. The Jazz are not playing well. They are injured -- tonight they'll be without Derrick Favors, Alec Burks, Dante Exum, *and* Trevor Booker (full post here). But they've been injured and played well before. Right now the team is injured and playing poorly. The Lakers aren't at full strength either, with Brandon Bass being out, Kobe Bryant being questionable, and Julius Randle being probable. But as far as I can tell, Bryant and Randle will both be playing tonight.
The Lakers only have 9 wins this season, and they could be looking for their 10th if the Jazz don't play up and beyond their competition. It would be strange, as many people don't know that their head coach Bryon Scott was born in Ogden, Utah. So, in a way, this would be a homecoming gift for him or sorts.
Starters:
| Lakers Starters | G | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PRASB | /min | ||||
| PG | Jordan Clarkson | 39 | 32.5 | 15.3 | 3.8 | 2.4 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 23.0 | 0.71 | |||
| SG | Lou Williams | 39 | 29.0 | 15.3 | 2.8 | 2.8 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 22.2 | 0.77 | |||
| SF | Kobe Bryant | 33 | 29.9 | 17.0 | 4.2 | 3.4 | 1.0 | 0.2 | 25.8 | 0.86 | |||
| PF | Larry Nance Jr. | 36 | 20.9 | 6.1 | 5.1 | 0.7 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 13.1 | 0.63 | |||
| C | Roy Hibbert | 41 | 25.5 | 6.7 | 5.9 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 1.6 | 16.0 | 0.63 | |||
| Utah Starters | G | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PRASB | /min | ||||
| PG | Raul Neto | 38 | 18.8 | 5.6 | 1.5 | 2.3 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 10.4 | 0.55 | |||
| SG | Rodney Hood | 37 | 30.1 | 13.2 | 3.0 | 2.6 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 20.0 | 0.66 | |||
| SF | Gordon Hayward | 39 | 35.3 | 19.4 | 5.1 | 3.2 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 29.2 | 0.83 | |||
| PF | Trey Lyles | 37 | 17.6 | 4.4 | 4.0 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 9.6 | 0.55 | |||
| C | Rudy Gobert | 19 | 31.9 | 8.4 | 9.7 | 1.6 | 0.8 | 2.6 | 23.1 | 0.72 |
Bench:
| Lakers Bench | G | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PRASB | /min | ||||
| 6 | D'Angelo Russell | 39 | 27.1 | 11.8 | 3.9 | 3.4 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 20.5 | 0.76 | |||
| 7 | Nick Young | 34 | 19.2 | 7.9 | 1.6 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 10.6 | 0.55 | |||
| 8 | Anthony Brown | 16 | 16.7 | 2.7 | 1.9 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 5.9 | 0.35 | |||
| 9 | Julius Randle | 40 | 26.5 | 10.7 | 9.5 | 1.7 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 23.0 | 0.87 | |||
| 10 | Tarik Black | 10 | 11.5 | 4.0 | 4.5 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 9.2 | 0.80 | |||
| Utah Starters | G | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PRASB | /min | ||||
| 6 | Trey Burke | 39 | 24.3 | 12.3 | 2.1 | 2.6 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 17.8 | 0.73 | |||
| 7 | Joe Ingles | 38 | 13.9 | 4.1 | 1.5 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 7.2 | 0.52 | |||
| 8 | Chris Johnson | 30 | 9.7 | 2.9 | 1.5 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 5.7 | 0.59 | |||
| 9 | Jeff Withey | 31 | 15.6 | 5.0 | 4.4 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 1.4 | 11.9 | 0.76 | |||
| 10 | Tibor Pleiss | 9 | 7.7 | 2.2 | 1.6 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 4.2 | 0.55 |
Injuries / Absences:
| Injuries / Absences | G | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PRASB | /min | ||||
| X | Derrick Favors | 26 | 32.6 | 16.8 | 8.6 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 29.6 | 0.91 | |||
| Q | Kobe Bryant | 33 | 29.9 | 17.0 | 4.2 | 3.4 | 1.0 | 0.2 | 25.8 | 0.86 | |||
| X | Alec Burks | 28 | 27.1 | 14.3 | 3.6 | 2.1 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 20.7 | 0.76 | |||
| P | Julius Randle | 40 | 26.5 | 10.7 | 9.5 | 1.7 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 23.0 | 0.87 | |||
| X | Trevor Booker | 38 | 22.9 | 5.4 | 6.6 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 14.5 | 0.63 | |||
| X | Brandon Bass | 34 | 17.4 | 6.1 | 4.1 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 12.5 | 0.72 | |||
| X | Dante Exum | ||||||||||||
| X = OUT, Q = Questionable, P = Probable, GTD = Game Time Decision | |||||||||||||
For our collective sanity, I hope the Jazz come out with some sort of pride. They should have won their last two games, instead are nursing a two-game losing streak. If you can't beat the Lakers, THESE LAKERS, then it's going to be a very rough stretch until the All-Star Break.
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