NBA 2022/23, Wednesday, 11/16/2022
The Utah Jazz and New York Knicks both just completed games of historic proportions. In one, a single player scored more than half of his team’s points and in the other, the scoreboard seemed to go crazy!
Focusing on my Jazz Knicks prediction for tonight’s clash in the Mormon city of Salt Lake City, I expect a high-scoring affair.
The home side have started the season surprisingly well despite selling out, but you can’t just replace a Rudy Gobert 1-on-1 like that.
No other team has shed as many stars this offseason as the Jazz. After a surprisingly early playoff exit, a new coach was brought in and a rebuild was underway.
Bojan Bogdanovic, Patrick Beverley, Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert – the four figureheads of the franchise – are gone and more players could follow. That’s because Salt Lake City had committed to a completely new plan for the 2022/23 season.
Of course, no one expects such a stripped-down franchise to be successful in the coming years. But the first few weeks are causing astonishment among many NBA fans, as Utah boasts a record of 10-5.
As brilliant as the Jazz may have started the new season, the last two games show that the departures of Mitchell and Gobert will pay off at the latest in games against top teams like Wizards and especially 76ers.
Still, to be honest, nobody could have stopped the Sixers that night, so I wouldn’t take the 98-105 loss as an indication that Utah is bound to go downhill from here on out.
On the other side, Joel Embiid had the game of his life. The Cameroonian dominated the Jazz and put a statline on the scoreboard never seen before in Philadelphia: 59 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists and 7 blocks.
For me, Gobert’s departure represents the most serious departure for the Jazz, because with the Frenchman, the once so strong defensive work has also collapsed to some extent.
The Knicks therefore seem to be the ideal opponent to help my over-224.5-point bet, which I intend to place on this game with the verified bookmaker Bet365, to succeed.
For their part, the Knickerboxers are known for a strong offence and a weak defence, which occasionally produces results that leave even the most die-hard NBA fan in awe at their magnitude.
In New York’s last appearance, a total of 280 points were scored. 135 on the Knicks’ side, ten more on the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are currently playing basketball at its finest.
I did not expect such an explosion of performance from OKC in this form. But, as we all know, your opponents only play as well as you let them – and in this context, the Knicks’ coverage wasn’t exactly stellar.
On Wednesday morning, I expect the next open exchange between two franchises that are among the winners of this early stage of the season – even if I see the Jazz with a slight advantage due to their better defence.
Fans on both sides got to see some incredible scenes in each of their team’s last appearance. Will Wednesday night at the Vivint Smart Home Arena be similarly eventful?
Meanwhile, in the markets, the prevailing view among top sportsbooks is that the Jazz are favourites to win with odds of around 1.57, while the Knickerboxers are underdogs at around 2.65.
When looking at the head-to-head matchup, the current Jazz Knicks betting odds might make sense on the markets, after all, the Utah franchise has won seven of the last eight head-to-head duels.
However, past experience no longer has any meaning in my eyes – at least not tonight. Utah’s roster has been transformed to such an extent that a comparison with previous games is simply not meaningful.
Conclusion: The only thing that has remained the same about the Jazz is the name and the logo, and in the offseason, pretty much everything that had rank and name in Salt Lake City was sold.
Still, the franchise from the Mormon city has started the season surprisingly well. Tonight, meanwhile, I expect a high-scoring match-up against the Knickerboxers, who have just come off a historic performance themselves.
In their last NBA game, New York scored 270 points. I’m not expecting quite that many points in the Vivint Smart Home Arena, but it should at least be enough for my Jazz Knicks tip.
My Jazz Knicks prediction: Over 224.5 points.
