After a month of solid basketball (winning 12 of 13), the Jazz have their shot tonight to leapfrog the Blazers and tie Denver for the division lead before heading out on a 5 game road trip. It will be a late tip at 8:30PM to accommodate ESPN but that will allow Jazz fans across the country to catch a glimpse of the streaking Jazz.
In today’s Daily Dime at ESPN.com, Tim Legler favors the Jazz to win “NBA’s most competitive division”:
1. Utah threatens the Lakers — and the Spurs, too. When the Jazz are healthy they compete consistently on defense, which is something you have to do against the Lakers especially. You can’t play lackadaisical defense against them because they are going to score 115-120 points on you. You have to come at them with more focus at that end of the floor.
Jazz coach Jerry Sloan has tons of experience and, with all that he’s been through in Utah, he will have them ready. I actually think Utah will catch Denver for first place in the Northwest Division and end up with the three-seed in the West, thereby avoiding a potential rematch with the Lakers until the West finals.
For both the Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets this may be the most important game of the season. The Jazz cannot afford a home loss right before the head out on a 5 game Eastern roadie, they desperately need to carry the momentum that they have built in order to conquer their road woes. Denver on the other hand may not be able to recover from letting a Jazz team fly by them in the standings when not long ago they owned a 6 game lead over their Rocky Mountain nemesis and looked to be cruising toward the division title.
After tonight there will only be 3 remaining head to head games between the Northwest division elite. The Jazz and Nuggets face each other again on April 2 in Denver, a few days earlier Utah will be in Portland on March 31. Denver has one remaining game at Portland to close out the season on April 15, which could be a huge game with the Jazz finishing up at Lakers the night before.
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