The Utah Jazz and New York Knicks are heading in different directions as they face off Saturday afternoon in Salt Lake City.
The Jazz come into the game on a four-game losing streak. They most recently blew a big lead against San Antonio on Thursday. Utah is currently in last place in the Western Conference with only three wins this season.
In contrast, the Knicks are on a four-game winning streak, having started their five-game road trip with a victory against Phoenix on Wednesday night.
Coach Tom Thibodeau was happy with how well the Knicks played together in their 138-122 win over the Suns, who were missing injured stars Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal.
“The guys are starting to get used to playing off of each other,” Thibodeau said. “Each game you can see they’re seeing things. They’re reading the game extremely well. I think they’re creating good spacing.
They’re cutting extremely well and what that’s doing is it’s opening up the floor and we’re playing into space. And everyone’s unselfish. We had 30 assists. I think that’s huge.”
In the win at Phoenix, Jalen Brunson scored 23 points in the first half, and Karl-Anthony Towns added 23 points in the second half. Brunson finished with 36 points and 10 assists, making 12 of 21 field goals and hitting 7 of 11 three-point attempts.
Towns finished with 34 points on 12-of-19 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds to help the Knicks continue their winning streak after beating Brooklyn twice and Washington once.
The Jazz fell apart on Thursday after leading by 20 points in the first half against San Antonio. Lauri Markkanen scored 27 points, and Keyonte George added 19 against the Spurs, who were missing star center Victor Wembanyama.
“I thought the first half, the energy, the tempo, the ball movement, the competitive spirit of the team was as good as we’ve seen in a while,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said.
But Utah struggled in the second half, giving up 75 points and being outscored by 12 in both the third and fourth quarters.
Brice Sensabaugh, a reserve player with inconsistent playing time, had a strong first half, scoring 13 of his 18 points.
“He has not complained. He’s not had, like, a ‘woe-is-me’ mentality. He’s just come to work every day and he’s taken some hard coaching,” Hardy said. “He understands what’s expected of him, but to his credit, he was ready, and he deserves all of the credit for that.”
The Jazz are struggling early this season and are looking to find more consistency. This has been a problem both on the road and at home. Utah returns to the Delta Center, a place usually tough for visitors, with just a 1-5 home record.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to play two halves,” said Collin Sexton, who scored 18 points for Utah. “We’ve got to play 48 minutes. You can’t allow the first half to get you too high or get you too low, you’ve got to always stay consistent and just continue to build off of that.”
