The San Antonio Spurs are starting to exercise some of the demons that haunted them during their post-Christmas hangover. They have won two straight games at home, and despite nearly collapsing late against the Minnesota Timberwolves, have shown real signs of improvement. How fitting that they\u2019ll have a chance to end the home stand that got them back on track against the team that started to take San Antonio off the rails.<\/p>\n
The Spurs will host the injury-riddled Utah Jazz on Monday. San Antonio was outplayed by Utah on December 27th, losing 127-114. The Jazz got great performances from Keyontae George and Lauri Markkanen, who both scored over 28 points. Utah will be without Markkenen on Monday due to illness. The Jazz\u2019s superstar poses real matchup issues for the Spurs, so the game should play out much differently without him in the lineup.<\/p>\n
San Antonio will still have to compete with George and the Jazz\u2019s young core. If they can play close to the way they did against the Wolves and Milwaukee Bucks, they should be able to end their three-game homestand undefeated.<\/p>\n
January 19, 2025 | 4 PM CT<\/p>\n
Watch: Fan Duel | Listen: WOAI (1200 AM)<\/p>\n
Spurs Injuries: Harrison Ingram \u2013 Out (G League), Stanley Umude \u2013 Out (G League), David Jones-Garcia \u2013 Out (G League), Devin Vassell \u2013 Out (adductor)<\/p>\n
Jazz Injuries: Isaiah Collier \u2013 Questionable (quad), Elijah Harkless \u2013 Out (G League), Walker Kessler \u2013 Out (shoulder), Lauri Markkanen \u2013 Out (illness), Georges Niang \u2013 Out (foot), John Tonje \u2013 Out (G League), Oscar Tshiebwe \u2013 Out (G League)<\/p>\n
Dylan Harper vs. Ace Bailey<\/p>\n
The Rutgers rookie duo of Harper and Bailey will get to matchup for the first time in the NBA. Bailey sat out their first matchup with an injury. Neither player is the primary offensive focus, but they are important role players for their respective teams. Bailey has been in and out of the starting lineup, with his inefficient scoring, but is a good athlete who can get hot on the wing. Harper has been putting together some solid performances in the last three games. It\u2019ll be fun to see these college teammates duel on Monday.<\/p>\n
The biggest difference between the Spurs\u2019 recent success and their past struggles has been the performance of their superstar. Wembanyama has been dominant, scoring 39 and 22 points in the last two games. His impact on the game has gone far beyond the box score. He\u2019s made it hard for teams to score inside and has buried them with hot shooting stretches. Without Walker Kessler or Markkanen, the Jazz are thin on the interior. The circumstances are there for Wembanyama to continue his MVP-level play.<\/p>\n
Utah can\u2019t defend. They are last in defensive rating and points allowed per game. They win games by outscoring opponents. The Jazz play fast (3rd in pace), move the ball around (30.1 assists per game), and score a lot (6th in the NBA in points per game). Not having Markkanen will hurt them, but the Jazz have plenty of ball-handlers and shooters that make them a hard team to guard. Utah\u2019s head coach, Will Hardy, has a great offensive system. The Spurs have been great defensively this season, with or without Wembanyama. They are 3rd in defensive rating. Monday\u2019s game will be a good test to see if a good defense can slow down a good offense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Antonio Spurs are starting to exercise some of the demons that haunted them during their post-Christmas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,423,6,5595,422,427,3972],"class_list":{"0":"post-546394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jazz","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-spurs-game-previews","12":"tag-utah","13":"tag-utah-jazz","14":"tag-utahjazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115920922529231983","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}