Utah Jazz: 3 takeaways from Game 2 vs. Rockets

No. 1: It’s hard seeing Utah taking this series

As mentioned at this beginning of this slideshow, Utah’s road to the Western Conference Semifinals just got a bit harder with the Game 2 defeat to Houston on Wednesday night at Toyota Center.

Not only have the Jazz now fallen behind 2-0 in the best-of-seven series, but with the way that they have been playing and how they have looked so far against the Rockets in this series, it’s hard to see them being able to win four of the next five games against Houston.

The Rockets are looking like they are once again a team that has the best chance to challenge the Golden State Warriors for which team comes out of the Western Conference side of the playoff bracket to take part in the NBA Finals.

With that, along with the struggles Utah has experienced in matching Houston’s firepower so far through two games, the Jazz will continue to struggle as the series advances.

A season ago, Utah was able to steal one of the first two games in its playoff matchup against Houston in the Western Conference Semifinals, but the Rockets went on to cruise to a 4-1 series win in the series to advance to the Conference Finals.

The Jazz are a good team on their home floor, so we could very well see a similar series outcome this year, but it’s going to be awfully difficult for them to take four games against the Rockets.

With Wednesday night’s win, Houston is now 8-0 at home in the first round since Mike D’Antoni took over as head coach for the 2016-17 season. The Jazz have now lost eight of their last 10 playoff games on the road since 2017, including falling in Houston in four of those five games.

Utah and Houston return to action in Game 3 on Saturday in Salt Lake City, but with the way this series has played out thus far, this matchup might not stretch out much longer.