Northwest Division

Utah Jazz Power Rankings - 2012-13

Power Ranking
WEEKRECORDRANKCOMMENT
Week 2442-3813Memphis might have nothing to play for Wednesday night, so the Jazz can certainly go 2-0 this week and finish with 44 wins. The problem as touched on in the Lakers' comment: Utah needs 45 wins to be sure of a playoff spot ... after it looked a couple months back like 42 might get it done.
Week 2341-3710According to numberFire.com's complex projections, Utah has a 57.6-percent shot of snagging the West's final playoff spot compared to the Lakers' 42.3 percent. No word from 'em yet, though, explaining how the Jazz mustered the sort of decisive D in Oakland we rarely ever seem from them.
Week 2238-3614Maybe that wild rally in Dallas, when the Jazz were down 17 with a little more than three minutes to go and somehow made it a one-possession game in the final 10 seconds, actually meant something. Utah hasn't lost a game since and holds pretty much every tiebreaker over the Lakers and Mavs.
Week 2134-3620Don't want to hear about how eight of the next 10 games are at home after the Jazz lost to the Knicks (minus Melo and Chandler) when last seen in the SLC. They're 3-12 since going seven games over .500 on Feb. 19 ... and Al Jefferson hasn't cracked 20 points for eight straight games.
Week 2034-3216On Feb. 19, Utah was seventh in the West and had a 5 1/2-game cushion on the Lakers. One month later, Utah has slumped to ninth, trails the Lakers by a game and is still waiting for its first road win since the All-Star break, having lost six in a row for the first time since (gulp) 1980-81.
Week 1932-3119Resisting trades at the deadline was supposed to supply some stability in Jazzland, but the team mentioned here often as most at risk for dropping out of the West's playoff race has already fallen out of the top eight. Ankle ailments plaguing Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap sure aren't helping.
Week 1832-2714The Lakers really haven't played as well as their 13-5 mark since Jan. 25 suggests, but I still say that the Jazz -- even after winning their season series with L.A. -- are at the greatest risk to drop out of the top eight given Golden State's home-heavy schedule ... and Houston's unconscious offense.
Week 1731-2510Make the playoffs now and deal with the overcrowded frontcourt later. That's clearly the approach here after the Jazz declined to trade either Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap. Yet entering Saturday's play, Utah had the fifth-hardest remaining schedule ... with the Lakers at 21 and Rockets at 27.
Week 1630-2411The Jazz played their best game of the season in a beatdown of OKC before the break, then finally won the back side of a back-to-back in Minnesota. Paul Millsap headlines the trade talk, but Gordon Hayward's health could be the biggest variable from here. (Spencer Hall, Salt City Hoops)
Week 1528-2414The good news: Utah has a league-leading 12 wins in games in which it trailed by at least 10 points. The bad news: Utah awoke Friday with the league's third-best record since Jan. 1 at 13-5, behind only Denver (14-3) and San Antonio (14-3), then lost both ends of a weekend back-to-back.
Week 1426-2215As soon as we suggested in this space that the Jazz were rolling in January, what happens? Utah suffers a 45-point humiliation at home against a Houston team right in its seeding range that makes us skittish to say anything leading into Monday night's home date with lowly Sacramento.
Week 1324-2012They love their bulletin board material in the SLC, so the suspicion here is much will be made of Kobe's claim that the Lakers finally beat someone worth a bleep after L.A.'s win over OKC and not after Friday's rout of the Jazz. P.S. Surging Utah is 9-3 in January with wins over Miami and Indy.
Week 1222-1912Utahns swamped the committee with Twitter protests Friday when their heroes' modest 44-win pace was pointed out, noting that several home games loom between now and the All-Star break to pick up that pace. Maybe the Jazz can weather Mo Williams' absence better than expected.
Week 1120-1915Residents in the SLC always expect their team to be competing for a playoff berth. So maybe the Jazz aren't such locks to move Al Jefferson and/or Paul Millsap before the Feb. 21 trade deadline. Would Utah dare to keep both, play out the season and then try to figure everything out?
Week 1017-1816Everyone around the league had their eyes on the Jazz anyway -- front-office types, we mean -- because of the widespread expectation Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap would be moved before next month's trade deadline to bring in a PG. Mo Williams' injury only ramps up the curiosity.
Week 915-1717Only one team out there can boast that it managed to run up a double-digit lead on the Clippers during L.A.'s rep-changing run of 17 wins in a row. The Jazz have done it twice this month, actually, only for the Clips to win both games in SLC in a building that has long been a torture chamber.
Week 815-1415For all the hassle Utah gets about its road woes, this should be a happy time after those recent wins in Brooklyn and Orlando. The mood, though, is dampened by the news that Mo Williams -- one of the keys to Utah's improved 3-point threat -- is suddenly out indefinitely with a thumb injury.
Week 713-1216A stat that can't be ignored now that Trade Season is fully under way: Utah ranks No. 23 in defensive efficiency and allows 106 points per 100 possessions when Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap anchor the frontcourt. When it's anchored by Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter? Just 95.3 points.
Week 612-1013The week began with a heartbreaking one-point L to the Clippers that soiled their previously unblemished home record. It ended with a redemption win on the Lakers' floor that took Utah's points tally for the weekend to a whopping 248 when tacked on to Friday's home rout of Toronto.
Week 59-917Al Jefferson continues to be the most efficient member of Utah's deep frontcourt after playing through a recent ankle sprain. He leads one of the NBA's three remaining unbeaten teams at home (with Miami and New York) into a welcome stretch of three in a row in SLC after a road-heavy start.
Week 47-715As previously stated, I'd really rather not keep coming back to Utah's well-documented issues with taking its show on the road. But what choice does a committee have when the Jazz are 5-0 on their floor, winning by an average of 10.8 points, and 2-7 away after getting dumped in Sacramento?
Week 35-613Don't know how often we can count on seeing the Al Jefferson-Paul Millsap-Derrick Favors supersized starting frontcourt trio that Ty Corbin trotted out at Washington, but we can say that fears of a sluggish start for Big Al faded quickly. Six double-doubles in his last eight games took care of that.
Week 23-416It's really not our intent to dwell on Utah's road woes. The Jazz, though, don't leave much choice thanks to the 0-4 road record -- after last season's 11-22 road mark that ranked last among all playoff teams -- they take into this week's four-game swing through the Eastern Conference.
Week 11-213ESPN Stats & Info, dispatching the sort of nugget that doesn't reach us every day, reports that the Jazz are 5-17 in their last 22 games played in the Eastern or Central time zones dating to last season. We think this is related news: Five of Utah's next eight games meet that description.
Preseason0-010Enes Kanter's big preseason presumably makes the eventual trade of Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap for a top guard even more of an eventuality. Safer assumption: October health setbacks suffered by Dirk and K-Love have given Utah's playoff hopes an early boost.
Training Camp36-3016In the early days of the Pop era, Utah was the franchise San Antonio always tried to emulate. Now the Jazz have imported Dennis Lindsey from the Spurs' front-office mafia to help figure out who on the frontline stays or goes (Jefferson? Millsap?) to make way for Favors and Kanter.

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