With the regular season nearing an end, the Utah Jazz could very well make a strong push toward a higher seed in the Western Conference in the upcoming five games.
The Utah Jazz have put together a heck of a second half to the 2017-18 NBA season, injecting some life back into what was becoming a tough start to the year.
Since the middle of January, Utah has gone from the No. 10 seed in the Western Conference standings to as high as the No. 5 seed, before landing in its current spot as the eighth seed in the very tight West playoff race.
During that span, the Jazz have rattled off 25 wins in a total of 32 games dating back to Jan. 15 — including two separate nine-game winning streaks — to put them into the conversation as one of the most intriguing and dangerous teams as of late in the Western Conference, if not the entire NBA.
Although the stretch Utah has put together has been an impressive one, the Jazz could very well end up making an even stronger push toward a higher seed in the West before the regular season concludes … and it all will take place in Utah’s upcoming five games.
For the Jazz, who have seven games remaining on their regular season schedule, their next five games will be the biggest stretch of the year in Salt Lake City.
More from Utah Jazz
- 5 NBA teams on the rise that will surprise everyone in 2023-24
- Grading the John Collins trade for the Atlanta Hawks and Utah Jazz
- Ranking the 10 championship-less NBA teams by closeness to title
- A former lottery pick may have a permanent home with the Utah Jazz
- 3 Teams that dodged a bullet with Russell Westbrook news
Of the next five games, three will be at home while two games will be on the road. Also, three of those five contests will come against an opponent with a below-.500 record, while the other two will be against teams right in the thick of things in the West playoff race.
That important stretch begins Friday night against the struggling Memphis Grizzlies in Utah, a game which the Jazz should win rather easily.
The next four games look like this: at Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday, vs. Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday, vs. Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday and at Los Angeles Lakers on April 8.
If you look at that span and those opponents, especially given how close the playoff race is and where Utah is placed in all of that madness, if the Jazz can manage to win at least four of the next five games — which is certainly possible — that could be enough to jump out of the eighth seed and grab a higher playoff spot in the West.
A game that will probably be the most important for Utah in those five games will be against the Timberwolves, who are ahead by half a game in the standings entering Friday’s action.
Of course, the game will be important for Utah’s hopes of grabbing a higher seed in the playoffs and avoiding losing the tiebreaker between the two teams, but the game will also contain a little extra motivation, considering how things went down in their last meeting in Utah.
Jeff Teague literally bodychecked Ricky Rubio into the Wolves bench pic.twitter.com/TNU1Io18rK
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) March 3, 2018
With every game, the Jazz keep getting closer and closer to officially claiming a spot in the Western Conference playoffs, but they aren’t focused on just making the postseason; they want to continue to try and climb the standings.
Next: 2017-18 Week 24 NBA Power Rankings
In the next five games, Utah could make even more noise in the entertaining playoff race.