Golden St. at Utah
Time: 8 PM CT (NBA LP)
Spread: UTA -7.5
Total: 211.5
Odds c/o 5dimes
UTAH notes:
Louisville product Donovan Mitchell is making his run for the 2018 Rookie of the Year Award. The Jazz now is playing a faster pace to utilize the skills of rookie Donovan Mitchell. He had 35 points and five rebounds on 10 of 20 shooting (5 of 11 threes) in the 99-88 loss to the Charlotte Hornets. Mitchell is looking like a future superstar, and the Jazz has some nice young pieces around him, but his emergence may shape the future of the Jazz’ building effort.
With an offensive cog like Mitchell around Gobert, it may be that the Jazz shapes its attack around Mitchell, with Rudy
Gobert simply being the defensive anchor he is. Mitchell had another 40 point outing in the Jazz’s 129-97 win over Phoenix the last outing.
Mitchell is averaging 24.6 points per game over his last 10 outings while shooting 49.5 percent from the floor. In January, he averaged 23.4 points per game, no longer showing any signs of all of being a rookie. Mitchell also comes up with 1.4 steals per game over his past 10 games, while having scored 33 percent of his 9.6 threes attempted per game. Mitchell was taken No. 13 overall but is definitely in the top-3 of whatever becomes of this draft class. He has the shooting range and slashing ability to become nearly unstoppable, and the Jazz may not have had a weapon of his caliber since the Stockton/Malone era. He’s now averaging 19.7 points per game and it likely will be 20-plus by season’s end.
“Spida,” as Michell refers to himself, is better than the likes of Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, and the multitude of semi-stars the Jazz have rostered, and the Pacers are much about a young prospect of their own in what could be an exciting showdown between two of the league’s best-unheralded talents.
Golden State notes:
The Warriors most recently pummeled Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns, 124-109. Prior to that, it somehow fell to the Sacramento Kings. The Warriors have lost three of its past five, but are 53-17 and currently second place in the Western Conference. The Warriors are banged up and announced Stephen Curry will miss the first round of the playoffs. That could spell trouble.
The Warriors could have sought to improve at the trade deadline, but instead with the “do not fix what has not broken” adage is active in not engaging at the deadline. Instead, the team moves forward with its four All-Stars, and two MVPs, as the prohibitive NBA Finals favorite for the fourth straight season (albeit only two of the previous three resulted in a title!). The Warriors have strung together the most dominant three-run season stretch in NBA history, per wins only, and the fact that the front office realized there is no tinkering with something already balanced was a mature and wise decision overall.
The injured Stephen Curry is leading the team in scoring this year with 26.8 points per game, to go with his 5.3 rebounds, 6.5 assists and 1.62 steals per night. Durant trails him at 26 points per game, but Durant is really close to having a 50/40/90 season, as he is shooting 51 percent from the floor, 42 percent from three and 89 percent at the line. Thompson, too, is close to that precipice but falls shorter at the charity stripe where he is just 86 percent.
Draymond Green is only attempting nine field goals per game, but he leads the team in assists with 7.3 per game, and he is vital in defending a myriad of switched pick and rolls on defense, having the foot speed and agility to switch out onto guards and defend them in the isolation that follows.
Green is one of the best defenders to come through the league in recent seasons, and his stellar ability to disrupt sets is one of the reasons why the Warriors are such a strong defensive team overall. He keeps the defensive lineup active and fast, rather than slowing it down with a traditional 5. Green, of course, starts at center, but he has a lot of positionless traits as an NBA player, and perhaps the league has not seen such a physical specimen with such grace since the late Anthony Mason. Indeed, they are similar type players. Green will need to step up his offense in the first round of the playoffs.
