NBA Odds – Cleveland Cavaliers at Utah Jazz
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
Cleveland Cavaliers at Utah Jazz (+5, 204.5 o/u)
Tonight, Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers will visit the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake to face the Utah Jazz in the second game of their western road trip. Tipoff is at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.Last night, the Cavs lost to the Portland Trail Blazers 101-82 and fell to 1-2 on the season. The Cavs were in striking distance heading into the fourth, but were outscored 25-13 in the deciding frame. James had only 11 points on the night on 4-of-12 shooting.
“We have to understand what it takes to win. It’s going to be a long process. There’s been a lot of losing basketball around here for a few years,” James said.
“It’s like building a car from scratch. I’ve done that before,” he said. “I hated the process, it got on my nerves. I sent it back to get repainted 100 times. But once it was completely finished I was excited about it.”
The one constant for the Cavs so far has been Kevin Love. The power forward has been solid in all three games, averaging 19 points and a whopping 13.3 rebounds. He had 22 points in the losing effort last night.
On the other side, the Jazz are 1-3 on the year and rank 28th in the NBA in points allowed, surrendering permitting 105 per game. The Jazz offense is led by Derrick Favors and Gordon Hayward. Hayward leads the team in scoring, with 18.8 per game, while Favors is second with 17.8 and leads the team in rebounding, averaging 7.5 a night. The Jazz will be looking for improvements from second-year point guard Trey Burke, who is averaging just 4.8 assists per game to go along with 3.0 turnovers and a woeful 11.8% shooting from three-point range.
In the last ten meetings between Utah and Cleveland, the Jazz lead the series with six wins and four defeats. However, Cleveland has won the last three meetings.
The Cavs are five-point favorites in the NBA betting odds, and the total is at 202 points.
(Photo credit: Keith Allison from Baltimore, USA (LeBron James) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped from its original.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
