Utah Jazz vs San Antonio Spurs
October 4, 2021 8:30 pm EDT
The Line: San Antonio Spurs / Utah Jazz
(Get latest betting odds)
The Utah Jazz and San Antonio Spurs meet Monday in NBA preseason action at the AT&T Center. The Utah Jazz are coming off a 52-win season, their most since 2009-10. The San Antonio Spurs have missed the playoffs the last two seasons and now appear to be in rebuild mode.
The Utah Jazz keep last years core that made last season possible, outside of losing Georges Niang and Derrick Favors. In fact, the Jazz strengthened its roster overall with the additions of Hassan Whiteside, Rudy Gay, Erich Paschall and the drafting of Jared Butler. Mike Conley is back for another season, Donovan Mitchell continues to take his game to another level and Rudy Gobert is still one of the top defenders in the NBA. Jordan Clarkson and Joe Ingles are both one of the better bench players in the league as well. A healthy and consistent Bojan Bogdanovic puts this Jazz team over the top and in the thick of the Western contenders. The Jazz will be eager to prove last season was no fluke.
The San Antonio Spurs will look like a completely different team with the departures of DeMar DeRozan, Patty Mills, Rudy Gay, Trey Lyles and Gorgui Dieng. In hopes of being somewhat competitive, the Spurs bring in Al-Farouq Aminu, Thaddeus Young, Doug McDermott, Zach Collins and Bryn Forbes. The Spurs also drafted Joshua Primo and Joe Wieskamp. There’s a ton of new faces on this Spurs roster and not a ton of time to build chemistry. Dejounte Murray and Derrick White are now the leaders in this Spurs clubhouse in terms of familiarity, and they’re still relatively young players themselves. We haven’t seen the Spurs in this position in quite some time.
The Jazz are 0-4 ATS in their last 4 games overall. The Spurs are 4-1 ATS in their last 5 Monday games and 3-1-1 ATS in their last 5 home games. The over is 9-2 in Jazz last 11 overall. The over is 4-1 in Spurs last 5 overall. The Jazz are 5-0 ATS in the last 5 meetings.
The San Antonio Spurs weren’t a good basketball team last season and they probably didn’t get any better with a lot of their best players now on other teams. The Utah Jazz likely won’t play their key players for this meaningless game, but they have some bench players who are eager to prove they deserve minutes on a contending team. The Jazz are in a much better spot no matter how you slice it.
Assuming the line isn’t super thick, I like the Jazz on the road.
