Game 37: Utah Jazz Vs. Houston Rockets Preview

The Houston Rockets have stood up to their competition quite well this week.

And they get to close it out at home against the lackluster Utah Jazz tonight.

The Jazz’s season has gone pretty much as I expected — not too well.

The highlight of the off-season was when the Jazz matched the Charlotte Hornets four-year, $63 million offer sheet for Gordon Hayward.

It had been said that the Jazz would match any offer any other team would make and they certainly did so.

This cements him as the cornerstone of the franchise — at least for now.

Oct 29, 2014; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz guard

Gordon Hayward

(20) controls the ball during the second half against the Houston Rockets at EnergySolutions Arena. The Rockets won 104-93. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

He and Derrick Favors and a bunch of supporting cast members are trying to complete a respectable finish on the way to the finish line within the next few months.

It probably won’t be.

The Jazz are as bad as the stats that precede them — 23rd in offense (96.4 PPG), 24th in assists (20.2) and 27th in steals (6.4). The things they do well are play decent defense and block shots — they’re 14th in defense allowing 99.1 points per game and 5th in the league in blocks at 5.8 per game. Rudy Gobert has contributed to nearly half that number with him averaging 2.2 a game, the team’s leader in blocks.

They’re ranked 16th in the league in rebounds averaging 42.4 per game allowing 39.2 a game.

They do take care of the basketball a heck of a lot better than the Rockets who are ranked 29th in turnovers (16.7) — next to last — but the Jazz are in the middle of the pack averaging about 14.0 per game.

The Jazz don’t force as many turnovers as they give up (11.4) for a +2.6 turnover differential, good for 2nd worst in the league. The Rockets (15.6) aren’t too far behind them with a +1.1 differential, good for the 20th ranking.

Hayward leads the Jazz in scoring and steals averaging 19.2 PPG/1.30 SPG respectively. Favors is the leading board-getter averaging 8.6 RPG and Trey Burke is the leading dime man averaging 5.1 APG.

Oct 29, 2014; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz guard

Alec Burks

(10) goes up for a shot while defended by Houston Rockets guard

James Harden

(13) during the second half at EnergySolutions Arena. The Rockets won 104-93. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

The last time the Rockets faced them was at the beginning of the season — Oct. 29th — where they went on beat the Jazz 104-93. This was a game that they had mostly under control but had a brief scare with Trevor Booker and Alec Burks hitting two key jumpers to put the Jazz within three in the 4th. But the Rockets’ bigs were too much for the Jazz with Dwight Howard, Terrence Jones and Trevor Ariza taking over to seal the deal. It was one of Ariza’s best games of the season with him being to get 20 points, five rebounds and two steals. He also shot 7-for-10 from the field and 4-for-7 from the behind-the-arc.

Ariza will be assigned one of his tougher tests of the season — guarding Hayward. He should do fine but it will interesting to see how both defend each other since 35 games have passed. Ariza was phenomenal with his defense — holding Hayward to eight points off 3-for-11 shooting from the field and 0-for-3 from the three-point line.

D-Mo will also have a considerable task in defending Derrick Favors — but I honestly think that he’s up to it. He had 22 points last night against the Oklahoma City Thunder, shooting 9-for-17 from the field. He snagged 11 boards and shot 4-for-6 from the free throw line. D-Mo’s intensity needs to be tenacious throughout to limit Favors as much as possible because he’s a big piece to what the Jazz attempt to do every game.

If the Rockets go out and shut down Hayward and Favors — the only thing we’ll have to worry about is how soon our starters will be headed to the bench so our reserves get more playing time. The game would be in the bag then but we shall see.

Will the Jazz follow suit with the past opponents by focusing their defensive resources on James Harden? They’ll likely try but we just have too deep of a roster for that to be a factor — we’ll just beat with our other stars/role players.

Just as the Rockets played the Jazz back in October, I expect the same tonight. This should be a nice Rockets’ win that they can cruise to.

Three Things to Watch:

Prediction:

102-90 in a Rockets’ win

The Rockets face the Jazz tonight at Toyota Center.

Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.

The game will be televised on ROOT Sports Southwest and broadcast on 790 AM (KBME).

Go Rockets!

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