I Hate Road Trips

Actually, I love road trips, but not when it's the Jazz and not when they're going to Minnesota. After a solid beating of the Clippers in SLC on Friday night, I was confident we would cruise through Minnesota without any problems. But I forgot the Timberwolves have Kirk Snyder on their team. Wait, What?

To be fair, Utah was missing Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko for the game on Sunday. Anytime you're missing two of your starters, you're bound to struggle. Unless you're missing three of your starters and you're playing the Clippers, but that's another story. The Jazz just couldn't do much of anything against the T-Wolves; they deserved to lose. I just can't understand Utah: they are virtually perfect at home all season, but as soon as they leave the state they look like BYU in the NCAA Tournament. Here's hoping we get home-court advantage for at least the first round of the playoffs.

To do that, the Jazz have to get serious and dominate this last stretch of the season. They play the Wizards tonight in Salt Lake. I'm betting my first child (unborn as of print date) that the Jazz win this one. After that, it doesn't look so good. They have a rematch with Minnesota on Wednesday (just chalk up a loss; that way you won't be disappointed no matter what happens), then they play San Antonio, New Orleans, Dallas, and Denver. If Utah can take four out of the five during that stretch, they should be sitting pretty come playoff time. On a related note, Minnesota WILL NOT be in the playoffs this year. That is good news.