The Utah Jazz (28-28) will have a tough test tonight at Vivint Smart Home Arena as they take on the San Antonio Spurs (48-9) at 8:30 PM. the Spurs are one of the elite teams in the NBA this season. If it wasn’t for the Golden State Warriors, the Spurs would be the talk of the NBA. The Spurs have won 3 straight games and 9 out of their last 10. The Jazz beat the Houston rockets on Tuesday in overtime as they have won 2 out of their last 3. The Spurs are 2nd in the West while the Jazz are 8th. The Jazz trail the Dallas Mavericks (30-28) by a game for the 7th seed and have a half game lead over the Houston Rockets (28-29) who are currently 9th. The Spurs won the first 2 meeting of the year by an average score of 121-90. The Jazz were definitely outplayed. The Jazz will have to play an outstanding game and slow down the Spurs offensively if they want to push their home winning streak to 8 games. This will be the first game this season that Rudy Gobert will be able to play against the Spurs as he was out due to injury their first two meetings.
Here is Utah Jazz Head Coach Quin Snyder with the media following shoot around:
Gordon Hayward has now pushed his scoring average past 20 points per game as he is averaging 20.1 points a game. He is also handing out 3.6 assists a game and collecting 1.2 steals a game. He leads the team in all of these categories. Hayward met with the media after shoot around. Here is that audio:
The Jazz, as a team, score 98.4 points per game, which is 26th overall in the NBA. The Jazz really pride themselves defensively as they are 4th in the NBA in scoring defense at 97.1 points per game. The Spurs are the best defensive team in the NBA as they only allow 92.7 points per game. They are 6th overall in scoring at 105.2 points per game. They also average 25.2 assists per game which is 3rd best in the NBA. Needless to say the Jazz will not have an easy time tonight against the Spurs, but you never know, that is why you play the game. Anything could happen.
Here is Derrick Favors with the media following shoot around this morning:
