16th January - New Orleans Pelicans VS Utah Jazz - 15-26
Having hit 15 wins, and with Sacramento losing last night, we are now tied with Sacramento in record. That means if we win tonight, with Sacramento not playing, we will move up a spot in the West. We will be only 3 games behind the 8th seed, if I remember correctly, despite all the struggles. And with a Zion return date now confirmed as the 22nd against San Antonio by Griff, we have the knowledge that each game that passes is one closer to seeing Zanos take court in a Pelicans jersey for real.
Tonight will be a slightly tougher one than we might like though: we're taking on the Utah Jazz. Currently 28-12, the Jazz have won 15 of their last 16 games, having lost only one game since December 11th: they're on a 10 game win streak. We played the Jazz last only a few weeks ago, and lost (though it was only a 2pt loss). Now, the Jazz have been taking advantage of a very soft bit of scheduling here: since January 1st, they've played Chicago, Orlando, us, Knicks, Hornets, Washington and Brooklyn: this is hardly murderer's row. Still, we can't be overconfident. Especially with the injuries we've had.
So what's our injury status?Updated Injury Report ahead of Thursday's game vs. Utah ⤵️https://t.co/1og7GV52Mn
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) January 15, 2020
Well, Ingram and Favors are both listed as probable, while Jrue and Kenrich remain out and JJ is questionable.
I won't go over all the Jazz stats in detail: we last played them recently and they've only beaten a bunch of poor teams since then. They're top 11 in ORTG and DRTG, they're a poor assists team, they lead the league in 3PT%, and Joe Ingles smoked us last time: that's about all the refreshment you need
Somewhat of a shame, though, that we won't get to see Zion go up against Gobert again. Recently, some members of Jazz twitter had (upon hearing the rumours of a Zion return) been speaking up, saying things like ''oh, are you sure you wanna bring Zion back against us? You know we have Gobert right? You might wanna start him off a little easier'' and while reminding them that Zion dropped 26 on Gobert in 23 minutes on 75% shooting during preseason is fun, it would be much more fun to watch him do it again as a reminder.
Oh well; we'll just have to see who turns up ready to play and let them go after it with their best shots. A win here would be great, but it's certainly no huge shame if there's a loss. Let's go. #WBD
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Originally Posted by P_B_&_G
