Utah Jazz: How Reachable is the Third Seed in West?

By observing the remaining schedules of both the Utah Jazz and Houston Rockets, it will be quite tough for the former to reach the third seed in the West.

Although the Utah Jazz are looking the best they have in at least seven years and are slowly but surely proving themselves as a threat in the Western Conference, they still have that tendency of Jazz teams of old to break our hearts. Of course, no team is going to win them all, but despite mostly solid play this season, the Jazz have undoubtedly had a few head-scratchers.

Thursday’s most recent loss to the Dallas Mavericks is of course a prime example of that very thing, but there have been several other occasions where the Jazz have found a way to disappoint. Whether it’s a blown game, an unexpected four-game losing streak or of course an unending string of injuries, there have been many examples of these frustrating and sometimes confusing occurrences.

Nevertheless, in spite of it all, the Jazz still find themselves solidly in fourth place in the West with a one-game lead over the Clippers as of this writing. Considering the injuries they’ve had this season and where they were at just a year ago, this is well above what many may have expected.

Yet, in other occasions, the Jazz have shown an uncanny ability to simply dominate opponents on both ends of the floor. Their defense has been on point nearly all season, but in games such as the recent wins over Atlanta and New Orleans, the Jazz have also shown that they’re capable of elevating their offense to a whole other level as well.

In fact, though it may come as a surprise to some, the Utah Jazz actually post the third best net rating (a measure of a team’s rating based on both offensive and defensive efficiency) in the league. That’s better than every team in the Eastern Conference and only behind the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs in the West.

Furthermore, while the Houston Rockets have enjoyed surprising success this year, Utah has split the season series with them so far and I think many Jazz fans would agree that, especially in those high moments we’ve seen flashes of, the Jazz are very much capable of being a better team than the Rockets.

And barring some unforeseen collapse, the Rockets will indeed be the team that the Jazz will be competing with for third place in the West. Yet unfortunately for Utah, Houston currently enjoys a comfortable four-game lead over them.

So given that deficit as well as the difference in the number of games left in the season for the two teams, Utah will have to win five more games than the Rockets between now and the end of the season, including the game that they’ll play against each other on March 8th, to earn the tiebreaker and finish ahead of Houston.

Looking at the two teams’ remaining schedules and counting tonight’s games, the Utah Jazz have 28 games left, 16 of which are against current playoff teams while the Rockets have 26 games left with 15 coming against playoff squads. Of those remaining 26 games, Houston will also play 15 of them at home while Utah has just 13 of their final 28 games at home.

Those aren’t huge discrepancies, but the Rockets definitely have the more favorable hand dealt to them according to those numbers and in a playoff race, even the slightest advantage can make all the difference, especially considering that they already own that comfortable four-game lead.

Houston also has on their side the fact that they’ve been an exceptional home team this year. They’re currently 20-6 within the Toyota Center, the third best home record in the NBA behind only the Warriors and Cavs. With that being the case, even opponents that one might consider better than the Rockets could very well struggle in Houston.

Furthermore, after my own gut analysis of Utah’s remaining 28 games, I’ve marked 10 as games they should win, three that they will probably lose and 15 simply as toss-ups. Houston on the other hand plays 14 games that I’d consider that they should win, three they’ll probably lose and nine that I’d consider toss-ups.

Obviously, there’s no exact science to all that, but the fact of the matter is that those toss-up, 50-50 games are the ones that will likely make all the difference. The bad news is that Houston has four more “easy” games and six less toss-ups than Utah.

Therefore, for Utah to steal that third seed from the Rockets, they’ll likely have to go something like 11-4 in those toss-up games (resulting in a 21-7 record over the last 28) to have any chance. Even if that were the case, assuming Houston wins each of those 14 winnable games they play, they would have to then go a dismal 2-7 in their toss-ups to finish 16-10 in their final 26 just to end the year in a tie with the Jazz.

Those numbers are hypothetical, of course, but it would give both teams 55 wins. That may seem high for the Jazz, but that’s probably about what it will take to finish third.

So is the third seed within reach? Well, with 28 games left for Utah and 26 left for Houston, there’s definitely a lot of time for the Rockets to go cold or the Jazz to heat up and create that five-game swing.

But, given Utah’s inconsistencies, their tougher overall schedule to close the season and the formidable lead that the Rockets already hold, it’s definitely going to be a tall order.

And one that I, unfortunately, think will very likely end up being out of reach.

Still, as I said before, taking care of business in those evenly matched contests is what is going to make all the difference. The Jazz have one such contest tonight as they face the Boston Celtics then two more as they’ll take on both the Los Angeles Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers before the All-Star break.

Meanwhile, each of Houston’s next four games (two prior to the break and two immediately after) are ones that I would project in the win column for them. Therefore, the results of the next few weeks could very well see Utah’s hopes for the third seed strengthen or fade extremely quickly.

More from The J-Notes

• With the FIBA World Cup over for Simone Fontecchio, it’s clear he deserves minutes for the Utah Jazz
• Best, Worst and Most likely scenarios for the Utah Jazz this season
• Hoops Hype downplays the significance of the Utah Jazz’s valuable assets
• 3 Utah Jazz players who have the most to gain or lose this season
• Former Utah Jazz forward Rudy Gay is a free agent still and it shouldn’t surprise anyone

Yet regardless of what happens, the Jazz are nearly a lock to be a playoff team this season and as long as they can get some of their issues worked out and be peaking in time for the postseason, I doubt that at that point there will be much of a complaint from Jazz Nation as to which seed they earned during the regular season.

Even so, stealing the third seed and avoiding a potential second-round match-up against Golden State would sure be nice, even if it is more than likely nothing more than wishful thinking.