Raptors at Jazz
The Utah Jazz have been incredibly streaky all season, and right now they are on another solid run after sweeping a four-game road trip. They'll try to extend their latest winning streak to six games when they host the Toronto Raptors on Monday.
The current surge for Utah comes on the heels of a four-game losing streak, which followed a four-game winning streak and before that a five-game slide and a 19-2 run. "Ultimately you can't get too high or too low through it, you've got to stay consistent on your work ethic and how you approach every day," Jazz guard Mike Conley told reporters after Saturday's 111-105 win in Detroit. "You can't worry about the result all the time. Right now we can't be worried about us winning four or five in a row, it's about the next game or tomorrow's practice. We've got to lock in on the little things." The Raptors will be finishing up a five-game trip and looking to end it with four straight wins. They received all but seven of their points from the starting five in a 118-113 victory at Sacramento on Sunday, pulling three games ahead of Boston in the race for second place in the East.
TIME: 9 p.m. ET. TV: AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, RDS2, TSN 1/4/5
ABOUT THE RAPTORS (45-18): Norman Powell scored 31 points, Kyle Lowry added 30 and Pascal Siakam finished with 23 in the win over the Kings to lead the solid play of the first unit, while five reserves continued a downward trend with a combined 2-of-14 shooting. "I don't know what else to say other than there's a group of them that were riding a wave of playing very well and now they're in a little bit of a downturn," coach Nick Nurse told reporters of the bench. ". ... They don't seem to be nearly as impactful. I don't know what it is. They just, like I said, they look really uncomfortable out there all of a sudden." The team became a bit deeper with the return of center Marc Gasol, who missed the previous 15 games with a hamstring injury, and standout guard Fred VanVleet is expected back from a shoulder issue this week.
ABOUT THE JAZZ (41-22): Bojan Bogdanovic followed up a rough game Friday at Boston by scoring 32 points on 12-of-18 shooting at Detroit, where Utah lost all of an early 22-point lead before surviving the stretch run. "NBA games, there's lots of big leads that change hands," coach Quin Snyder told reporters. "For us to respond the way we did was a really good thing." Donovan Mitchell added 25 points and is averaging 25.1 since the All-Star break for the Jazz, who are a game out of third place in the West and 1 1/2 up on fifth-place Oklahoma City.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Jazz SF Royce O'Neale is averaging 3.3 points in 30 minutes over the last three games while shooting a combined 3-for-18.
2. Powell is averaging 28 points in five games since returning from a hand injury.
3. Siakam scored 35 points to lead Toronto to a 130-110 win in the first meeting, extending the Raptors' winning streak in the series to three games.