When: January 22, 2016; 7:30 PM EST
Where: Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY
TV: YES Network
Radio: WFAN 660 AM
The Brooklyn Nets’ last win came a week and a half ago at home against their cross-city rival, the Knicks. Tonight, at Barclays, they’ll look to stop a four-game losing streak as they host the Utah Jazz, who have dropped the first two games of a road trip that, via a postponement due to the blizzard expected to hit the East Coast this weekend, has been cut short.
Originally, tonight’s game was supposed to be the front end of a back-to-back for Utah, which is without the services of former Net Derrick Favors, who hasn’t played a month because of a back injury. But, with extreme weather in the forecast for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic today and tomorrow, Utah’s game in Washington against the Wizards on Saturday night has been re-scheduled for a later date.
This means that the Jazz, who have lost four of their last five games, will be — except for Favors (back) and Dante Exum (ACL tear) — more or less at full strength as they try to salvage at least one game from their abbreviated trip to the Eastern time zone. They lost to the Knicks in overtime at MSG on Wednesday night despite 29 points from Rodney Hood and 27 from Gordon Hayward, just two days after falling to the Hornets in an extra frame.
Meanwhile, the Nets got beat soundly by the Cavaliers — who fired head coach David Blatt earlier today — on Wednesday in Brooklyn and have lost each of their last four games by at least 12 points. But, before late-game collapses against Portland, Atlanta and Toronto, the Nets actually played pretty well under interim coach Tony Brown, they just weren’t able to finish those games strong. The Jazz are missing a few key guys so today’s game is another big chance for a win, especially because Utah has been a dreadful road team this year (6-15 away from Salt Lake City) and doesn’t have a ton of reliable frontcourt depth.
Probable lineups
UTA- Raul Neto (PG), Rodney Hood (SG), Gordon Hayward (SF), Trey Lyles (PF), Rudy Gobert (C)
BKN- Donald Sloan (PG), Wayne Ellington (SG), Joe Johnson (SF), Thaddeus Young (PF), Brook Lopez (C)
Final thoughts
The x-factor, in my opinion, for this game is Utah’s Rudy Gobert, who is every bit of 7-foot-1 and is one of the NBA’s leaders in blocked shots. Points will be hard to come by at the rim for Brook Lopez, so he’ll probably be forced to take a lot of floaters and 15-footers. If he’s able to make those, and draw Gobert away from the paint, where he is so dominant defensively, the Nets have a shot in this one.
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