Brooklyn Nets vs. Utah Jazz Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 2/4/2022

Time: 9 p.m. ET

Venue: Vivint Arena, Salt Lake City, UT

Where to watch: ATTSN-RM, YES

DraftKings: Jazz -5.5

BetMGM: Jazz -5.5

Caesars: NL

Nets: 29-22 (6th, East)

Jazz: 31-21 (4th, West)

We have clearly gotten to the point of the program where we can no longer trust the Brooklyn Nets to do anything other than showing up to the arena and lose on that given night.

This is exactly why I do not trust the Nets to even remotely come close to winning on Friday when they host the Utah Jazz in a game where I feel Utah at home should dominate this game.

We will get to the Nets in just a second, but let's focus on Utah at the moment because there is finally some good news on the horizon for the jazz who have lost seven of their last nine. Donovan Mitchell has finally cleared concussion protocol and the All-Star guard will return to the lineup for the jazz on Friday in this matchup against Brooklyn which will continue a 6-game homestand.

The Jazz had been in desperate need of a victory for the last little while but was finally able to do so on Wednesday in a four-point victory against the Denver Nuggets at home. You have to look at the quality of teams that the jazz have lost to over the last couple of weeks. there are two losses to the Phoenix Suns in there, there's a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers when they weren't fully healthy, a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, and even a two-point loss on the road to the Golden State Warriors.

There has not been a lot for Utah which is normally a team atop the Western Conference to be excited about since Mitchell, their superstar, went into concussion protocol. getting Mitchell back is going to be a boost for a team that desperately needs more star power and more talent to get back to the top of contention in the Western Conference.

Utah got a balanced contribution in their win over Denver with six players scoring in double figures. The leading scorer was a man by the name of Trent Forrest, who missed all but one shot and had 18 points and eight assists in place of Mitchell.

And you think about who Utah did not have in this game. Rudy Gobert was out with a left calf strain; Danuel House Jr. was in COVID protocol; Hassan Whiteside had a back strain, and Jordan Clarkson was out with a right knee injury. yet here is Utah still in a great position under head coach Quin Snyder and this homestand should help them gratefully as they go into the second part of this season.

Now quite honestly I don't want to talk about the Nets but I feel we are obligated to do so within this line of work because there is really nothing more that can be said to save the Nets or even think of them in a positive light as we enter the second half of the season.

Brooklyn has lost six in a row and four of those losses have been by result of double digits. It's not even just the fact that Kyrie Irving is in and out of the lineup on any given day. it's not even trying to figure out if James Harden wants to stay in Brooklyn or if he wants to leave, or if he just wants to be traded to Philadelphia. It's not even the fact that Kevin Durant has not played in what seems like forever and he's not healthy to save this team right now.

The Nets are an absolute mess and there is no chance in saving them at this point. That loss on Wednesday to the Sacramento Kings might have been their most uninspired performance this season, and that is putting it mildly.

You can understand losing to the Lakers with the return of Anthony Davis, you can understand losing to the Denver Nuggets on the second night of a back-to-back at home while watching Nikola Jokic do absurd things. you can even understand losing consecutive games on the road to the top teams in the league like the Golden State Warriors in the Phoenix Suns.

But it is an entirely another level to go into Sacramento,, despite being on the second night of a back-to-back and watching Harden miss nine of his eleven shots and watching Irving take 15 shots and only make five. When your leading scorer is a young power forward who at the time when everyone was healthy, was the third or fourth power forward on the depth chart, that is a problem.

There is no understanding of what Steve Nash is going through as a head coach trying to navigate through these waters and trying to understand what is exactly happening to this star-studded team that should be atop the Eastern Conference right now, but the man needs a prayer.

With Mitchell back in the fold, and presumably Gobert back in the fold, I like the jazz to continue this homestand on the right foot and get another victory while sending the Nets to unforgivable purgatory. Jazz by 8

The Nets are 19-31 ATS this season.

The Nets are 7-15 ATS in non-conference games this season.

The Jazz are 8-17 ATS at home this season.

PG: James Harden

SG: Kyrie Irving
SF: Patty Mills
PF: Kessler Edwards
C: Nic Claxton

PG: Mike Conley

SG: Donovan Mitchell
SF: Bojan Bogdanovic
PF: Royce O'Neale
C: Hassan Whiteside

Nets: Kevin Durant (knee, out), LaMarcus Aldridge (ankle, out), Joe Harris (ankle, out)

Jazz: Rudy Gobert (calf, out), Jordan Clarkson (knee, questionable), Hassan Whiteside (back, questionable), Joe Ingles (ACL, out), Danuel House Jr. (COVID, out)