With the season drawing to a close the OKC Thunder will face fellow Northwest Division rivals the Utah Jazz in the penultimate game of the season.
Punctuating just how different the season’s paths have been for these clubs since their last contest OKC has played 16 games and has a single victory with 15 losses. Conversely, the Jazz is poised to have the best record in the NBA this season and subsequently home court seeding throughout the playoffs.
Utah can’t stamp that ticket yet as former Thunder captain Chris Paul and his Phoenix Suns are just one game back of the Jazz and also intent on taking the top seed in the conference.
The other concern for Utah is they’ve lost two games in a row to the Warriors and Blazers. Their final two games feature this game and the Kings but as Thunder Nation knows Sacramento has enjoyed playing spoiler. Just because they’ve been eliminated from the play-in and are missing core players the Jazz can’t afford to take the Kings for granted.
OKC Thunder versus the Utah Jazz – 3 keys to the match:
There aren’t any secrets here — the Thunder will lose this game because they need to in order to stay in the mix to get the best odds for the NBA Draft Lottery.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t goals for the team and Mark Daigneault. At the top of the list is observing the youngsters who are participating and witnessing how well they follow the game plan and system.
With that, let’s dive into the three keys for the Thunder versus the Jazz…