Houston Rockets vs. Utah Jazz game preview

The Utah Jazz are making it no secret: they are tanking.

The Jazz were 26-26 on February 6. They are 3-24 since. Come on.

It has worked beautifully, though. Utah has gone from possibly drafting at 14 to the eighth-best lottery odds. They are two games behind the Memphis Grizzlies for seventh, but that seems unlikely with just three games left.

Tonight is Utah’s final home game of the season, so there’s probably some pride on the line. There’s a slew of players who are “game time decisions,” but those could go either way if the Jazz feel like they’re locked in.

For the Houston Rockets, this is a game that could get them back to .500 on the season. It would give Houston 40 wins, a mind-blowing turnaround from the previous three seasons. And as we learned from the Russell Westbrook MVP season, people seem to really like nice round numbers that are divisible by 10.

I think Ime Udoka will balance playing for these final three wins with shutting down the key veterans on this team. There’s probably an internal goal to win 41 games. Or maybe it’s 42 wins, and they play out the string. We’ll see over the next few days.

Tip-off

8pm CT

How To Watch

Space City Home Network or Playback TV

Injury Report

Rockets

Alperen Sengun-OUT

Jae’Sean Tate-OUT

Jazz

Collin Sexton-GTD

Kris Dunn-GTD

Walker Kessler-GTD

John Collins-GTD

Jordan Clarkson-GTD

The Line (as of this post)

N/A

Looking ahead because we can

Friday night in Portland