The Utah Jazz take on the Detroit Pistons in a Friday night matchup. The Jazz come into this game with star big man listed Rudy Gobert as questionable. With that being said, what the Jazz need is a win, not excuses. Anything less than a win tonight might start a revolt amongst fans and start to cause real tension and pressure on team chemistry.

Detroit comes into this game after winning their last game against the Sacramento Kings 133-131. The Pistons are 6-5 during the month of January and even though they have a record of 9-30, they have shown marked improvement since the start of the season. Rookie Cade Cunningham has shown flashes of his star potential and scored a season high 29 points against Utah on 1/10. The key for the Pistons will be to slow down the Jazz offensive attack so that they can keep the game close and have a chance to win it at the end.

Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images

The Jazz come into this game with obvious recent struggles including their most recent bad loss at home to Western conference cellar dweller Houston Rockets on Wednesday. The Jazz were without Rudy and Donovan in that game, but still had a lead in the second half that they coughed up. If there is panic amongst the Jazz fan base there sure doesn’t seem to be any coming from Jazz players during this stretch. From team leader Rudy Gobert “I’m not worried……. At all. We want to win every night, but sometimes you need nights like this to get better and keep going”. Jazz forward Joe Ingles said, “We’ve proved that we’re not just going to walk in and win games…..we’ll watch film and keep trying to get better as the season goes on, and have another crack at it on Friday”. So maybe things aren’t as bad in the locker room as many fans think they are but it sure would be nice to see the team play up to their potential and get back on the winning track tonight.

Ultimately this is one game as part of a long season, but the Jazz have got to get their confidence back and there is no better time to start than tonight with a win. Winning heals a lot of problems and also it will feel nice for the Jazz to get a revenge win for the Pistons embarrassing them earlier this month.

Game Info

When: Jan 21, 2022 - 7:00 PM MT

Where: Vivint Arena, Salt Lake City, UT

TV: ATTSN-RM

Radio: 1280/97.5 The Zone