The Houston defense has always given the Utah Jazz fits, that was to be expected on Monday night. What to watch for Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images Perimeter Defense Hopefully Utah has learned a valuable lesson from the Rockets game on Monday that you can never underestimate your opponent, especially when that opponent is a long-time playoff team.
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Betting against Pops’ Spurs is like assuming the house is vacant in Resident Evil, it’s never vacant and they can return to life at any time. They remain one of six teams to beat the Bucks this season and have additional wins over Boston, Clippers, and Miami. In spite of all this, the Spurs are always still dangerous. (Remember when people said Derrick White and Lonnie Walker were better than Donovan Mitchell?) Moreover, Aldridge will be out against the Jazz with a sprained thumb. Pop has resorted to starting good friend of the Jazz Trey Lyles at center, with Jakob Poëtl’s development stalling and Bryn Forbes, Dejounte Murray, and Derrick White all failing to make the leap so far. The declines of former all star LaMarcus Aldridge’s decline (19.1p/7.5r/2.3a vs 21.3p/9.2r/2.4a last year) and Rudy Gay, alongside losses in bench production from Marco Bellinelli and Davis Bertans have made the difference between a 48-win team and 36-win rate team, which was not helped by a 8 game loss streak in November (4-12 in that month).
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Only, this time, they still have more or less the same team as last year. The Spurs (20-26) are having probably the worst season ever since the year David Robinson got hurt and sat out a bunch of games to tank, wherein the Spurs got Tim Duncan and immediately went back to contending. What’s important is how the Jazz bounce back into the swing of the season.
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The point is, good teams lay eggs sometimes, and last game wasn’t too surprising given the emotions from the unfortunate passing of NBA legend Kobe Bryant. The Lakers recently got blown out by the Celtics by 32 points in spite of the return of Anthony Davis, the Clippers lost to the Grizzlies 140-114 earlier this month, and the Celtics lost Last year’s Jazz lost to the Wolves behind a career 50 point night from Derrick Rose.