Utah Jazz at Chicago Bulls: Keys to the Game

The Utah Jazz should be able to come away with a victory over the Chicago Bulls despite finding themselves in the midst of a challenging four-game road trip.

Despite the fact that the Utah Jazz suffered a disappointing loss at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday night, they have still played well enough of late – winning nine of their last 13 contests – to keep hold of fourth place in the West.

Of course they’ve had some help from their Western Conference foes below them in the standings as both OKC and Memphis had cold streaks not long after the All-Star break and the Los Angeles Clippers have currently dropped three straight including their recent loss the the Jazz.

Therefore, Utah is in a great spot even though they still have two games left on their current four-game road trip. And fortunately the two teams they have left to face are ones that have had their fair share of struggles this season, particularly the Chicago Bulls who Utah will be taking on tonight.

The Bulls found themselves just inside the Eastern Conference playoff picture for much of the season, but have nosedived following the All-Star break and now find themselves two games out of eighth place. That isn’t an insurmountable deficit by any means, but if the Bulls keep playing as they have of late then there’s only a very slim chance of them qualifying for the postseason.

Chicago has won just one game out of their last eight and is just 4-8 since the All-Star break. What’s worse is that it was announced earlier in the week that the Bulls’ second leading scorer Dwyane Wade would miss the remainder of the season with a fractured elbow that he suffered in Wednesday’s loss to the Grizzlies.

Without Wade, the Bulls could be in even bigger trouble than they were already getting themselves into prior to his injury. While it’s certainly unfortunate for him and his Chicago team, it’s also a circumstance that Utah will need to take advantage of.

They were thoroughly outmatched by the Bulls in this season’s previous contest in Salt Lake City as they put up a sluggish performance to fall 85-77 in a game that was nationally televised on TNT.

However, with exception to the recent loss to Cleveland, Utah’s offense has looked much better of late while Chicago has struggled to be effective on either end of the floor, so as long as the Jazz take care of business in the following areas, they should be able to take advantage of a dwindling Bulls team.