The Mavericks return to one of their house of horrors Thursday night as they take on the injury-riddled Utah Jazz.
The Mavs last played in Salt Lake City on December 26th, where they lost 97-88 to a Jazz team missing its top three scorers in Carlos Boozer, Paul Millsap and Mehmet Okur.
It was a bad night all around as the Mavs arrived late due to a snowstorm after playing the night before in Portland and the effort showed. Add in that Dirk was called for a flagrant foul and ejected in the fourth quarter and the writing was on the wall.
The two teams hooked up again on January 17th, this time at the AAC, with the Mavs claiming a 115-108 victory.
The Jazz come into Thursday’s game looking to catch the Suns, who they trail by half a game for the 8th playoff spot in the Western Conference.
The Mavs currently hold the 7-seed in the West and are a game behind both New Orleans and Houston.
Utah has been fighting the injury bug all year and it is no different now as Boozer, Andrei Kirilenko and Deron Williams are all battling injury and are questionable for the game Thursday.
The only injury concern for the Mavs is Jerry Stackhouse’s bruised right heel.
If Williams is able to play, the matchup between him and Jason Kidd will be an interesting one to watch. Williams is an up-and-coming point guard in the league how has the ability to make plays or his teammates and make shots. Kidd was recently giving the reins to the Maverick offense, and the team has responded with three straight victories. It will be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out in the hornet’s nest that is Energy Solutions Arena.
Dirk will need to keep his emotions in check this time around. He has been ejected twice over the last couple of games in Utah due to flagrant fouls. The Jazz have a lot of big bodies to throw at Dirk, including Matt Harpring, Kyrylo Fesenko and Okur. You can guarantee Jazz coach Jerry Sloan will remind his players about Dirk’s recent history in Salt Lake City.
The rest of the crew needs to keep playing the type of team ball they have display over the last week and a half. Since Kidd was handed the reins, the offense has had more of a flow to it, with guys driving to the basket and creating opportunities for more foul shots instead of settling for jumpers. They’ll need to bottle up whatever they had in Florida and take it with them to a place where, historically, they haven’t fared too well.
Overall, with the Jazz banged up and the Mavs playing as well as they are, the good guys should come out on top. Of course, the last time the Mavs went up there, I’m pretty sure we were saying close to the same thing. We all know how that turned out.
