UTAH JAZZ SCHEDULE SHAKEUP

Despite the hot start to the in-season tournament for the Utah Jazz, they will not be participating the week of December 4^th with the 8 remaining squads.

The Jazz started 2-0 in tournament play with wins over Memphis and Portland but were ultimately done in by a tough loss to Phoenix, and an absolute drubbing at the hands of the Lakers.

With a 2-2 record in those tournament games and a -13 differential, Utah will join 11 other Western conference teams who couldn’t come out on top.

In all fairness to the Jazz, West group A, in which they were a member, had the 4-0 Lakers with a high of a plus 74 differential.

With the Lakers running the four tournament games better than anyone else, Utah fans had to hang their hopes on a wild card spot to punch a ticket to the knockout round.

Those hopes were quickly dashed, as fellow Group A squad, The 3-1 Phoenix Suns emerged as a 34-point favorite over Minnesota for the West Wild card and Utah was left with nothing.

If you look at the week of the knockout and final rounds of the in-season tournament on your printed PDF calendar hanging above your work desk, you’ll notice it was left empty.

With clarity on who will be playing and who won’t be, the 22 “loser” teams will carry on with their generic boring regular seasons.

The NBA released the updated schedule for that week alone, giving all non-tournament participants two shiny new games.

For the Jazz this takes shape with a Wednesday, December 6^th, road game in Dallas to take on the Mavericks in what is the first meeting this season between the two.

The Friday, December 8^th game will be a home bout against the misfit Clippers in which the Jazz will debut the new City edition court.

Yes, we have seen the accompanying uniform but this would be the first time with the matching court.

The all-purple court that was used when these jerseys appeared was specific to the In-season tournament and is not set to appear again.

Although we wont witness exciting, exhilarating tournament basketball in Utah, we can look forward to yet another alternative court. That’s something right?