Winners of five in a row

The Utah Jazz enter the contest having won five-straight games. They are currently 18-11 (7-8 on the road), good for sixth in the Western Conference standings.

The current streak have featured an offensively tuned Jazz squad. Along with scoring 115 PPG, they are also raining down outside shots with good efficiency, knocking down 15 or more threes in four of the five games on a 41.9% shooting clip.

Donovan Mitchell, Bojan Bogdanovic, Rudy Gobert, and Mike Conley remain as the key guys in the Jazz’s attack, and it’s the top two that’s primed for a big scoring night. Mitchell has 27.6 points and 5.4 assists on 53.4%-shooting in his last five, while Bogdanovic is at 26.8 points and 4.8 threes over his last four.

We’ll see how the Jazz’s eighth-ranked scoring defense (106.3 PAPG) against the Miami Heat’s team-oriented offenses, especially since they also allow the fewest assists per game (20.9).

Protecting home court

The 21-8 Heat began their current homestand with a bang. On Saturday, they had the offensive engine revved up as they piled a ton of offense on the New York Knicks and won, 129-114. It tied their season-high in points within regulation and the 18 threes and 34 assists were also among their best all year.

At 12-1, the Heat are tied with the Boston Celtics for the best home record in the league. They are also winners in six of their last eight games.

The Heat have a bevy of weapons for every type of attack. It was pretty evident in the win against the Knicks as the team scored that many points with leading scorer, Jimmy Butler, sitting back and scoring nine points on three attempts – yes you read that right.

Still, Jimmy Butler, along with Bam Adebayo, will headline the Heat on both sides. Both have been all-around, with the former averaging 22.8 points, 7.7 rebounds, 7.5 assists, and 1.6 steals in his last 10 and the latter 18.6 points, 11 boards, 4.9 assists, 1.3 steals, 1.2 blocks on 56.1% shooting this December.

PREDICTION:

The Heat win, 109-104.