Tuesday play -- Jazz at Clippers...

NBA Preview: Chris Paul will have to carry a heavy load with Blake Griffin out if the Clippers are going to advance to the conference semifinals.

#5 Utah Jazz (53-33) vs. #4 Los Angeles Clippers (53-33), Tuesday. 10:30 p.m. EST

Line: Clippers -3. Total 196.5.

Series: Tied 2-2.

There is something strange going on in this series. Whenever a star player leaves the game, that player’s team goes on to win the game.

In Game 1, Rudy Gobert injured his left knee before a shot was even taken. He only played 17 seconds. The Jazz rallied to win on a Joe Johnson buzzer beater 97-95. In Game 3, Blake Griffin injured his foot at the end of the first half and did not return. Chris Paul scored 24 second-half points and the Clippers rallied to win 111-106. In Game 4, Gordon Hayward left the game in the first half due to food poisoning and did not return. Johnson, Rodney Hood and Derrick Favors combined for 63 points off the bench as Utah rallied to win 105-98.

Gobert is back and Hayward is probable to be back in Game 5 for Utah. The Jazz are fortunate to even be in this series considering they have yet to play a single game at full strength. Johnson, Favors and Hood have been huge off the bench for Utah in this series.

Griffin is out for the season for the Clippers. This does not necessarily spell doom and gloom for Los Angeles. The Clips were 10-10 without Griffin this season and 31-16 without him last year in the regular season. Los Angeles is 0-3 without Griffin in the postseason the last two seasons. However, in addition to Griffin being out, the Clips were also without Chris Paul in both of their playoff losses in 2015-16.

Vegas is not making a huge deal out of Griffin being out. The Clippers opened as 3.5-point chalk for Game 5, while in Game 1, Los Angeles was favored by 5.5 points with Utah at full strength. So Vegas is saying the Clips are only 2 points better as a team with Griffin playing.

Paul can will this team to win. He has averaged 26.8 points per game, 10.8 assists per game and 6 rebounds per game in this series. In the last two games, mostly without Griffin, Paul has averaged 30.5 points per game, 11 assists per game and 7.5 boards per game. However, I am not sure if he can will the Clippers to win two out of the final three games in this series with Utah at full strength.

If Paul is able to push Los Angeles into the conference semifinal round, the buck will stop there. A rested Golden State is waiting for them in the next round and the Warriors have owned the Clippers the past couple of years.

My posted picks are 6-2 in the playoffs. However, I am not feeling super confident with the games on the board for Tuesday. I like the Jazz, but am worried about what coach Quin Snyder is going to do with his rotations. Snyder has a lot of tough decisions to make with Hayward coming back, Gobert on a minutes restriction and his bench playing so well. Austin Rivers is also back for the Clippers for Game 5.

My #1 totals were better than my #1 sides during the regular season, but I have not been feeling the totals this postseason. My sides have done better in the playoffs. I will make a pick for today only because I am hot. However, I am going to drop it down to a half-unit play. I also have leans to the Spurs and Rockets, although I hate laying that many points.

My pick:

Utah Jazz +3, laying $55 to win $50 (1/2 unit, small play).

GL.

Thanks
Best Of Luck

Thanks again brewer keep rolling my man and appreciate ur help goodluck

B/7.........BOL with your action tonight...........indy

Good luck tonight.....

Thanx guys...

Also on Jazz +3 tonight. Was on Clipps after the game 1 loss at -160 for series but hedged out of it after Blake went down. Now Blake is gone, Gobert is back. These teams are trending in opposite directions. It's a totally different series IMO.

Blake was actually a good defender on Joe Johnson, Joe isn't blowing by many guys at this point in his career, he just uses his size/body to create separation then shoots over the top of you. But even for a 4 Blake is athletic and long enough to stay infront of him and take that contact and still contest. And the Jazz have to go with that small 4 guard lineup to get offense because they aren't a very good offensive team. This is a lot easier to do when Blake can't go at you on the other end inside and on the boards. Loss is being a little underrated because they've had some success w/o him before, but playoffs is a different animal.

Clipps playing Felton, Speights, Pierce decent minutes right now, none of these guys would even get in the Jazz rotation and the Jazz do a good job attacking all of them when they come in the game. If Mbah is on Johnson then you can also go to Hayward against Redick/Crawford and it is tougher to get into full rotation because Gobert is pretty nice at the rim/boards. Crawford or Redick will get attacked by Hayward if Mbah is on Joe Johnson. If Hayward can't exploit those matchups that is a pretty bad sign for him.

I think the Jazz need to recognize this big edge they have in depth and push the tempo a little more, but they were doing that last game and Hayward didn't even play.

Lastly, I'm not a big motivation guy but these two teams are just in different places in their team cycle right now. The Clipps lob city hype is over, they're gonna get killed by GS in the next rd anyway, if this series is a battle, how hard are they gonna fight? I'm sure they will bring it but maybe not as much as the Jazz. Jazz haven't been to the 2nd rd in 6 years and want to keep this run going a little more. Also, I'd assume Staples crowd is a little better tonight than G1-2 but their crowd sucks. It's pretty natural really, this is the 6th year of this team and they are further away from a title right now than they've ever been. Tough for the fans to get up for beating the Jazz in the 1st rd.

I think if it is a close game late I still like CP's chances to close but it's getting harder and harder with how little he has around him. Crawford can get hot but he got hot last game and they still took a loss. Maybe Austin Rivers coming back can give them another offensive boost. But at some point you're just undermanned.

Be interesting to see if CP ups his minutes from the 36-37 range tonight, that is what LAC really needs.

Also, just to respond to your talk of Snyder being in a pickle with Hayward coming back and dealing with rotations.

I think he mostly has it right only having 1 big in Favors/Gobert on the court at once. Maybe if Favors were healthier you put both out there and exploit Speights lack of rebounding and D but I think 4 smalls/1 big is probably the correct default lineup.

But the main issue would be with Hayward coming back, you have to play Hood less and he did play well last game. I don't really think that is that tough of a decision though, Hood a nice scorer off the bench but Hayward should clearly be in over him. I'm not the biggest Hayward fan but this is a pretty nice matchup for him now. If you're really debating how to split Hayward's minutes with Rodney Hood then you probably shouldn't be paying Hayward 170 million in 2 months, but that is another story for another time. Also, everything I've read is that the food poisoning is behind Hayward.

Good points...

Clips are out-manned for sure...But, they have Chris Paul, who is just so, so savvy...And Redick broke out finally to keep them in the game or Utah would have won by double-digits...Although the Jazz made a couple of bad fouls on Redick fouling him on missed 3's AFTER he had already released his shot, one on a foolish fly-by and another bad one well after the shot was already released...

Paul and Redick kept them in it, but the Jazz had too much depth with Johnson and Hood, who combined for 30...

But man, you just cannot stop Chris Paul...

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
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brewers7 said:

Good points...

Clips are out-manned for sure...But, they have Chris Paul, who is just so, so savvy...And Redick broke out finally to keep them in the game or Utah would have won by double-digits...Although the Jazz made a couple of bad fouls on Redick fouling him on missed 3's AFTER he had already released his shot, one on a foolish fly-by and another bad one well after the shot was already released...

Paul and Redick kept them in it, but the Jazz had too much depth with Johnson and Hood, who combined for 30...

But man, you just cannot stop Chris Paul...

Click to expand...

Jazz % from 3 overall for the game was good on more volume than they normally shoot but it should be so easy to get good looks vs this Clippers team. They missed so many open shots the first 3 quarters. Even with the Clipps going 10 minutes without a FG they couldn't even build any type of lead. Then when they did build an 11 pt lead, CP erased it in like 2 mins. Even though the play made a lot of sense, figured we were cooked when CP drained the tying 3 around 8 mins left. The 4 small/Gobert lineup just makes it really tough for LAC to defend with how depleted they are though. Just too much talent to overcome in that game.

Hood stepped up in the 4th nicely with Ingles struggling.

I was surprised to see Jazz only -5.5 gm 6, I figured it would go to 6.5. Think there is a good chance of a double digit win in G6. Crowd will be hungry and I doubt Jazz shoot that bad on open 3's again.