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SALT LAKE CITY -- The Jazz are now 13-12 and currently on the outside looking in at the Western Conference playoffs. Now the bad news, they are 2-7 on the road and about to play their back-to-back-to-back all on the road.
After the Jazz lost 101-87 to the Thunder at home they are looking down the barrel of a possible six-game losing streak. Starting on Sunday they will play at Memphis, New Orleans and Oklahoma City on consecutive nights.
"We got to come back to Utah with a winning record," said Al Jefferson who led the team in scoring with 20 points. "Every team goes through this. This separates the good teams from the bad teams. We got to find a way to come back to Utah with a winning record."
In order to come back to Utah with a winning record they will have to go 2-1 on this stretch against teams they have gone 2-1 against so far this season. The difference will be that those games were at home. Now, they've got to do it on the road.
"It's going to be a tough stretch, we'll figure it out." said Paul Millsap, after scoring 10 and grabbing nine rebounds on his 27th birthday. "Figure this thing out on the road and that is play as a unit, play together. Things we've been talking about all year, things we got to do."
Three games in a row is a unique principle in the NBA and the Jazz will have to think differently in order to keep up the energy.
"We'll have to see how the games develop," said Coach Tyrone Corbin. "We want to make sure we give ourselves the opportunity to win each game. We have an idea we can cut some time and maybe shorten the rotation a little bit."
The Jazz are only a game out of sixth place and two games out of fourth. On the other side they are only a game above 10th and three more losses could put them into 12th place. So, what do the Jazz have to do in order to stay in the playoff race?
Corbin and Gordon Hayward both talked about the need for energy and to outwork the opponent.
"We got to come out with a lot of energy," Hayward said "We won't have the crowd behind us so we're going to have to come out and not get in the hole like we have the past two games on the road."
The Jazz might need to think outside of the box in order to stay rested through the stretch or they could just listen to some simple advice from Raja Bell, "Maybe get some blowouts to get some rest."
