Significant injuries to both the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Clippers left the door wide open for the Utah Jazz to move up in the standings, but because of a trio of poor performances this past week, Utah completely failed to capitalize.
Earlier in the week, I wrote about how due to a pair of significant injuries to both the Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets, the Utah Jazz, who were in fifth place in the West at the time, were in a prime position to make a significant leap up the standings.
The Clippers reported that Blake Griffin would be sidelined due to knee surgery and news broke that the Rockets’ Clint Capela would miss time because of a fractured fibula. The Clippers also suffered a further blow since then as Chris Paul went down with a hamstring strain in LA’s stellar win over San Antonio on Thursday.
Thus, since making mention of Utah’s opportunity to take advantage of probable losses facing these two teams due to their injury woes, the Houston Rockets have lost two of three contests and while the Clippers were able to down the Spurs without Griffin, the absence of both he and Paul led to them losing to a struggling Dallas team on Friday night.
Both of the opponents that at the time were immediately ahead of the Jazz in the Western Conference standings did their part to help Utah move on up. Unfortunately, with Utah’s dismal week, they found themselves not only failing to take advantage of the huge opportunity, but actually moving in the wrong direction.
In a week that we knew would be tough from the onset, the Jazz completely laid an egg as they were blown out by Golden State on Tuesday, lost to a hapless Sacramento team at home on Wednesday then failed to contain the Toronto Raptors on Friday in what became their third straight loss.
Thus the Jazz dropped back to seventh place in the West, behind the Oklahoma City Thunder and Memphis Grizzlies once more and officially squandered the opportunity that the Rockets and Clippers had allowed them.
While it’s completely unrealistic to expect the Jazz to win every game and I’m pretty sure that hardly anyone believed that they had much of a chance to go undefeated in this week’s three-game stretch, I think many of us viewed the Jazz as more than capable of going 2-1 and finishing no worse than 1-2. However, instead they shocked us all by going 0-3.
Nov 20, 2016; Denver, CO, USA; Utah Jazz forward Joe Johnson (6) is fouled by Denver Nuggets forward Wilson Chandler (21) during the first half at Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
Nevertheless, for sake of comparison, had the Jazz managed to take advantage of their foes’ injuries and found a way to win all three games, they would currently find themselves at 21-10, just one game behind both the Clippers and the Rockets with three lottery teams up next to end the month. Now that would have been an incredible position to be in.
If Utah had played better this past week, they could have easily granted all of Jazz Nation an amazing and unexpected Christmas present by knocking on the door for third place in the West.
Tough loss tonight. Time to enjoy Christmas and be back recharged! Merry Christmas everybody! #takenote
— Rudy Gobert (@rudygobert27) December 24, 2016
Nevertheless, us Jazz fans know that’s just not how our fortune works. Instead, the Jazz now find themselves not only back in seventh place but also a hearty four games behind both LA and Houston.
It’s not an unreasonably high deficit, but in such a highly competitive Western Conference and with such an opportunity presented by other teams’ injuries, it would definitely be nice to see Utah in a little bit better position.
????#TORatUTA pic.twitter.com/DS3pvcApjs
— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) December 24, 2016
But they have no other choice but to just leave the past behind them. They’ll now benefit from getting the chance to take three days off between games and then hopefully they can start taking advantage of the same injury opportunity that will last several weeks as both Griffin and Capela go through the recovery process.
After all, there’s still plenty of time for the Jazz to utilize those struggles to their advantage and hey, better late than never.
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The Jazz could benefit from some improved health themselves, so with the extra days off, hopefully it will provide them with a boost in that area and we’ll see them surging back up the standings once again in no time.
And this time around, hopefully they can actually be there to stay.
