Saturday night the Sixers traveled to Utah for a meeting with the 9-20 Jazz after suffering a defeat at the hands of the Portland Trail Blazers Friday night by a score of 114-93. Saturday’s game, the second of a back-to-back and game number four on the Sixers seven-game holiday road trip, featured an exhausted Sixers squad matching up with an antsy Jazz unit who’s last game was Monday night when they came out victorious versus an excellent Memphis team. Although the Jazz were successful in Monday’s performance, they came into Saturday night’s meeting with the Sixers struggling to get the job done on their home court, posting a 1-8 record in their last 9 games in front of their hometown fans at EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Sixers, on the other hand, have played extremely well when on the road so Saturday night provided the Sixers with a great opportunity to capture another road victory, but would the fatigue of the long road trip begin to kick into gear?
Both teams came out of the gates and couldn’t hit the ocean if they were standing on the beach. Seriously, it was that rough on the eyes. And unfortunately for viewing purposes the atrocious shooting continued throughout the night from both sides. The Sixers wound up scoring only 12 points in the first quarter of play and only had 32 points when they made a slower than usual walk to the locker room for halftime. As for the Jazz, they were a fared a bit better from the field but not by much and actually fell below the Sixers in shooting percentage at one point about midway through the third quarter. But, in their defense, they were playing well defensively, forcing the Sixers into making untimely mistakes resulting in easy points for the Jazz at the other end, eventually leading to their 44-32 halftime advantage over the dismantled Sixers.
Newfound hope was formed early in the third quarter as the Sixers began the period on a 15-2 run giving them their first lead of the night, 47-46. The Sixers mini comeback was highlighted by the play of Robert Covington, who has continued to impress people with his shooting performances night in and night out. Covington hit some huge shots that prompted the Sixers spurt and brought the momentum to the Philly bench for the time being. Shortly after, the Jazz regained the momentum and took a 59-55 lead into the fourth quarter of action.
Throughout the fourth quarter the Jazz took complete control over the game and the Sixers looked weaker and weaker with every second that ticked off the clock. The back-to-back definitely got the best of the Sixers tonight as their inabilities to produce offensively plagued Brett Brown and his squad. Utah seemed like they took too much time off for the holidays throughout the night, but managed to pull out a victory and get their win column into double digits as they find themselves victorious 88-71 over the Sixers.
The final team shooting stats are difficult to look at. The Jazz shot 35.7 percent from the floor and a brutal 17.4 percent from beyond the arc. Sadly, the Sixers were even worse, shooting only 32.4 percent from the floor and an atrocious 19.2 percent from three-point range. As for some individual statistics for the Sixers, Tony Wroten had yet another productive night off the bench, scoring 20 points on 8-17 shooting to go along with 6 rebounds. Robert Covington provide Brett Brown with a quality performance tonight as he finished with 17 points on 5-10 shooting, while also hauling in 9 rebounds. Michael Carter-Williams and Nerlens Noel both had rough nights as they combined for 13 total points on 4-25 shooting, which is such a dreadful percentage that the number doesn’t even deserve to be typed, so let’s just leave it at that.
For the Jazz, they had a well-rounded night across the board with five players reaching double digits. Trey Burke and Derrick Favors led the team each scoring 17 points and young star Gordon Hayward had himself a productive night as he posted 15 points. The Jazz struggled mightily in this one but were able to manage a victory in the end. The Sixers will look to rebound in Golden State on Tuesday night at 10:30.
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