Cleveland Cavaliers at Utah Jazz
Written by Steve Janus - Google +
The Utah Jazz will look to keep the Cleveland Cavaliers in the dumps when the two teams face off Friday night at EnergySolutions Arena. Utah won 131-125 at New York on Wednesday, and will face a Cavaliers team that is coming off one of the most embarrassing defeats in NBA history. Cleveland lost 112-57 at the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday, the worst lost in franchise history. That’s not all that is going wrong for the Cavaliers, they have lost 21 of their last 22 and 17 straight on the road. Taking a look at the spreads, oddsmakers have the Jazz favored by 14.5-points over the Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers only win since falling to the Celtics on Nov. 30, is a 109-102 win at home over the New York Knicks. Making matters even worse for Cleveland is the have a number of key players out right now. Anderson Varegjao is out for the season, and Daniel Gibson and Anthony Parker are both listed as doubtful for tonight’s game against the Jazz.
In the loss to the Lakers, the Cavaliers didn’t have a single starter score in double figures, they shot just 29.9% from the field, turned it over 19 times, and were pathetic on the defensive end. While the Cavaliers have to be thinking it can’t get any worse than this, its hard to see this team beating anyone right now.
Antawn Jamison is averaging 23.4 points and nearly seven rebounds in his last five games, and is doing everything he can to help this team climb out of the gutter, but even when Jamison is on, it doesn’t appear to be enough to help this team right now.
Mo Williams has to get things going for the Cavaliers to turn things around. Williams is averaging 7.8 points over his last five games, and there just isn’t enough offensive weapons for him to continue to struggle like this.
While the Cavaliers are hurting, Utah is finally getting healthy and should have no trouble taking care of the Cavs in this one. Utah won at Cleveland 101-90 back on Dec. 20, thanks to a team-high 22 points from C.J. Miles off the bench.
Raja Bell and Paul Milsap each had 19 points and Deron Williams had 17 and 10 assists in the win over the Cavs.
In Utah’s latest win over New York, Williams had 24 points and 12 assists, and Miles came off the bench to score 24. Mehmet Okur scored 10 points in just 12 minutes in just his fifth game this season. Okur has battled injuries all year, and don’t be surprised if the Jazz continue to limit his minutes.
I think you have to lay the 14.5 points on the Jazz in this one. Cleveland is coming into this game with little to no confidence they can win right now, and just don’t have the talent to keep this one close.
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