Coming down the home stretch....

[Jazzman20]

With 13 games left, we've come to that crucial part of the season that separates the men from the boys (and Rocket's fans). In the final 13, the Jazz play 6 at home and 7 on the road, with the road games coming against playoff caliber teams (besides maybe Phoenix).

My heart tells me the Jazz get hot and take 11 out of 13, but my brain tells me otherwise (a total road collapse, if that even makes sense ), with us finishing with 7 or 8 more wins if we're LUCKY.

Here is the remaining schedule for Utah. Be sure to vote in the poll!

Tue, Mar 24 Houston
Wed, Mar 25 @ Phoenix
Sat, Mar 28 Phoenix
Mon, Mar 30 NY Knicks
Tue, Mar 31 @ Portland
Thu, Apr 2 @ Denver
Fri, Apr 3 Minnesota
Sun, Apr 5 @ New Orleans
Wed, Apr 8 @ Dallas
Fri, Apr 10 @ San Antonio
Sat, Apr 11 Golden State
Mon, Apr 13 LA Clippers
Tue, Apr 14 @ LA Lakers

[Reckless]

i hate looking ahead...say on the eastern road when we went 2-0 people thought we go 4-1 or 3-2 at the worst and we end up going 2-3..what i say about this season is **** happens. So I don't dare to look too far ahead with this team

[Tabasco]

In these last 13 games, the Jazz have 7 road games and 5 back to backs. Jazz are 14-20 on the road this season with most of the wins coming against garbage teams. They are also something horrible like 3-12 on the second game of back to backs.

Considering the fact that the Jazz blow goats in the above scenarios, and that over 50% of the remaining schedule falls into these scenarios, I'm confident that the Jazz will not win another game for the rest of my life.

In all seriousness though, I would be shocked if they did better than .500.

[babyjax13]

The thing is with the games they lost, with the exception of Orlando, we were in, or ahead at the end of the game and *should* have won. They did a lot better staying in the game against playoff teams on the road than they have all year, so I think it is pretty fair to say that they have a good shot at winning at least half the games, even the back-to-backs.

I honestly think that the Jazz that we knew are starting to grow up. There are only three teams in the entire NBA that I am afraid of us playing, and they are Orlando, LA and San Antonio--and really we should be able to beat all of them if everyone plays like they are going to win.

I think that if we can win the Houston, San Antonio, and LAL games we WILL be the favorites entering the playoffs.

[HammerDunk]

I see 9-4. I am trying to stay very optimistic.

[Jazzman20]

I think that if we can win the Houston, San Antonio, and LAL games we WILL be the favorites entering the playoffs.

Wait, what??? Just because the Jazz win THREE tough games on the road they're favorites to win the championship? I'm sorry, I just don't understand your logic .

[babyjax13]

Any team that wins the series against LA, beats San Antonio in their house, and wins the Houston series along with going on a 12 game win streak and then staying hot through the end of the year has to be considered a favorite in my mind, especially a team that has struggled through massive amounts of injuries that would have made any other contender in the west miss the playoffs. Boston is on their last legs, and we have already proven we can hang tough and beat them, we usually destroy Houston, and if we can shake off the San Antonio curse then I don't care what any one else says, we are the best team. Cleveland does not scare me, all we have to do is make Lebron shoot jumpers all night (no one else on that team is going to win a game for them), and if everyone on the team plays like they can, we are better than Orlando too.

[Jazzman20]

If we were a half-decent road team I might agree with you, but facts are facts- we're not. I'm always willing to let the Jazz surprise me, but I just don't see us snapping our road woes this year. If we're lucky I see a second round exit.

If I'm proven wrong, then I will willingly admit that I am a pessimistic a-hole, but until then, I'm going to stick with the facts.

[babyjax13]

That is fine, I can see your stance, but if we win the majority of the road games in this last stretch we will be a "half-decent" road team. Since the beginning of February we are 6-4 on the road, and if we do beat LA, Houston, and SA (which I don't think *will* happen, but if it does) there is no way they are the only road games we will win to finish out the season. I can see us going 5-3 easily on the road to end out the season, and if we do that we would be a respectable 11-7 since February, and 19-23 overall--which isn't great, but you would have to think that if we had a full roster we would have at least won half of our road games instead of going 8-16 to start the season. The games we have played since February should be what we use to measure our team, and since then we are 17-4. Give this team a couple more games (successful games) together as a unit and we will be scary entering the playoffs.

[maccca32]

I think the Jazz will go 8-5 the rest of the way. I was projecting their win-loss with 26 games to go and the Jazz havent disappointed (or suprised unfortunately) in the first 13 games thus far.

The Jazz should win out at home to finish 36-6 for the season. The next home game vs HOU is huge and also PHO as important as well.

We are an average road team at best but have showed a few positive signs on the road of late. They have had solid wins over Indiana (19-14 at home) and Oklahoma (started 2-14 at home but are 12-8 in their last 20 with wins over SAS, POR, DAL, PHI, DET and us).

I cant see us winning on the second night of a back at back on the road (L @ Pho and L @ Por). Its unlikely we win at SAS or LAL either.

The remaining three games on the road are vs DEN, NOH and DAL. Any of these would be good road wins. I want to see us take two of these three games to finish 51-31 on the season (16-25 on the road). Though we would probably have to win atleast one more road game to get home court in the first round.

I think we have NOH number. They are the weakest of the three teams at home (26-10). They have already lost at home to GSW (6-29), NYN (10-24), CHI (11-26), ATL (14-22) and POR (16-20) this season. Not to mention we have already thrashed then twice at home this season. A MUST WIN really.

The Denver game is critical to winning our division (obviously a win over POR would be great too). Even when Denver went on their 3-8 skid they were a solid 3-2 at home with only L to BOS and HOU.

They havent lost to a bad road team at home all year. LAL (24-9), SAS (21-12), CLE (25-12), ORL (24-11) and BOS (25-12) are all excellent road teams. The other losses were to NOH (18-15), HOU (18-17) and DET (16-17).

Mind you Utah should be a .500 team on the road this year like those last three teams. If the Jazz hadnt lost alot of easy road games earlier in the year (vs NYN, WAS, CHA, MIL, OKC) and also to GSW recently they would be atleast a .500 road team.

Dallas are 25-4 at home with only losses to LAL, SAS, DEN and BOS since starting the season 0-4 at home. This will be the toughest game to win.

ALL the remaining games are huge, a win against a tough home team (PHO, POR, SAS, LAL) will lift the team but a loss at home to a terrible away team (NYN, MIN, GSW, LAC) will cost us big time.

Makes this season all the more interesting.

[Jazzman20]

That is fine, I can see your stance, but if we win the majority of the road games in this last stretch we will be a "half-decent" road team. Since the beginning of February we are 6-4 on the road, and if we do beat LA, Houston, and SA (which I don't think *will* happen, but if it does) there is no way they are the only road games we will win to finish out the season. I can see us going 5-3 easily on the road to end out the season, and if we do that we would be a respectable 11-7 since February, and 19-23 overall--which isn't great, but you would have to think that if we had a full roster we would have at least won half of our road games instead of going 8-16 to start the season. The games we have played since February should be what we use to measure our team, and since then we are 17-4. Give this team a couple more games (successful games) together as a unit and we will be scary entering the playoffs.

I won't deny that we're a scary team come the playoffs. Hell, even if we barely snatched the 8th spot in the West we'd be scary. Truth be told, no team in the west wants to play us in the first round (besides maybe the Spurs). We're extremely physical, we're near impossible to beat at home, and we're incredibly deep. If we hadn't been plagued with injuries this season, I'd say we'd be realistically looking at one of the top 2 spots in the west (amazingly, we still have the opportunity to steal a 3 or a 2 seed, but I don't deem it very likely). I would love the Jazz to surprise me and make an excellent showing in the playoffs, but I have a tough time believing that we will. Right now I'm just excited to even be in the picture considering our circumstances. GO JAZZ!

[outerspacefella]

50-32 final record at best... and given the circumstances I will consider it a darn great season by the Jazz... at the start of it I didn't expect a 50+ win season even with a healthy roster...

[3960HOOD]

This has been one of my favorite Jazz seasons! Through all the injuries and other stuff that happens if we can get in a little run here I think we can go far!

[gonzo]

We're in fade mode.
Please prove me wrong.