Previewing Tuesday inter-conference tilt – for more coverage and content, follow @Larsen_ESPN on twitter.
Following an impressive win over the New Orleans Pelicans, the eighth-place Jazz(37-30) will look to improve on their active six game winning-streak Tuesday as they welcome Blake Griffin and the Detroit Pistons to Salt Lake City.
Utah has won 18 of their last 20 games and has catapulted up the NBA’s power rankings ladder, but their work is far from done. With just four games separating the third-seed from the tenth-seed, each of the Jazz remaining 15 games is of upmost importance. If they can continue their hot-streak, they could be looking at a home-court advantage in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. If they slip up, they could be with us, back in SLC, watching the NBA Playoffs on television. The ninth-place(east) Pistons are also vying for a playoff spot, so overlooking them could prove costly.
The frontcourt matchup of Drummond-Griffin vs. Gobert-Favors is a storyline in and of itself and is the x-factor in this game. Blake Griffin averages near career-high in his face-offs with the Jazz – something the stout Utah defense will need to remedy tonight.
Set for a 7p.m. tipoff, the Jazz and Pistons meet for the second time this season. Utah took the first contest 98-95 back on January 24th – the first win of that 11-game streak they had just before the All-Star break.
I stopped by Jazz headquarters this morning to see what they guys had to say ahead of the pivotal late-season contest.
