When you have teams with superstars like the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, not to mention a team like the Denver Nuggets with super-center Nikola Jokic, you would have figured you’d have the top three teams in the Western Conference right there.
Well, that hasn’t been the case. The Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns have been the class of this conference, and one of them is likely to have the home court advantage through that side of the playoff bracket. In fact, these are the teams with the two best records in the entire league.
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A head-to-head matchup on Wednesday night will be one of the things that determines who might be king of the hill in the West. It will begin at 10 PM ET at the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix.
Who emerges with the victory here? We’ve got a winner we can play at HRWager.
Let’s take a look…
Utah Jazz at Phoenix Suns ATS Prediction
Tip-off: 10 PM ET
NBA Betting Odds: Utah -2 / Total 225.5
The Jazz just had their nine-game winning streak broken by the Dallas Mavericks (111-103) and now they run into a Phoenix team that has won its last five games at home, as well as nine of its last ten games.
So neither team is showing any signs of fading.
At 38-12, Utah holds a 2.5-game lead over the Suns (35-14). And the Jazz have been sizzling against the spread (31-18-1 ATS). But so has Phoenix (31-17-1 ATS).
Ten of Utah’s 12 losses have come on the road.
The Suns went to Salt Lake City and took Utah down 106-95 on New Year’s Eve, this despite the efforts of Rudy Gobert, who had 16 points and 14 rebounds. Phoenix had balance with six players in double digits, led by Devin Booker’s 25.
The Jazz are often identified with defense because of the presence of Gobert, the French native who is referred to by several nicknames, including “The Stifle Tower.”
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The reality is that this team is #1 in the NBA in Offensive Rating. And after years of operating about as slowly as molasses, the Jazz are 18th in the league in the “Pace” category.
The Suns are the team playing with a much more deliberate pace these days – ranking 26th in that category. And that isn’t a big surprise under coach Monty Williams. What might be a big surprise, however, is that they are 5th in the NBA in Defensive Rating. That is part of the “culture” Chris Paul brings to the table. Paul is averaging 8.8 assists, with a 4-to-1 ratio to turnovers.
If you wanted to put this Utah season in a nutshell, you could say that the gains through the three-point shot have been tremendous. First of all, they are shooting FIFTY-ONE percentage points higher than their opponents from beyond the arc (.395 to .344). And they have outscored their foes by an average of 19.2 points per game from three-point range.
There’s a lot of dangerous shooters. Donovan Mitchell, who leads the team at 25.4 points per game, is just below 40% from downtown. Bojan Bogdanovic is 39%. Joe Ingles, who has long had a reputation as a long-range sharpshooter, is second in the NBA at 50%. Mike Conley, who finally made it onto the All-Star team, has hit 42.1% triples, and as the point guard he is greatly responsible for stepping up the tempo.
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So this is a team that is very difficult to defend.
Yet in the first meeting, Utah had limited success shooting the ball, making just 12 of 34 from three-point territory. Meanwhile, Phoenix blitzed them with 17 treys in 33 attempts (51.5%).
It’s perhaps useful to point out that the previous meeting came in the midst of a period in which Utah got off to a choppy start, losing four of its first eight games.
It may seem logical to look at this as a “value” play on the Suns, grabbing points at home (where they are 18-8 straight-up). But we’re going to see some extra focus from this Utah crew, and we’re not expecting a repeat of their previous poor performance from three-point range. The Jazz pounds out a winning tune and gets some payback.
The Play: UTAH -2
