Predicting the Phoenix Suns in 2019-20 vs the Northwest Division
By Adam Maynes
Northwest Division
Utah Jazz
A lot of people are hugely bullish on the Utah Jazz’ additions of Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic, pairing them up with established stars Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.
While I am personally not nearly as high on Conley as many are around the league, I will not ignore the fact that he will not need to be a star in Utah like he was in Memphis and needs only to both facilitate their free-flowing offense and shoot when Mitchell is double-teamed (which will happen a lot).
Overall, though, Utah is a very good team, they scored at will against Phoenix last season, and have kept the Suns below 100 points as a franchise for each of the last two seasons (Phoenix peaks at 97 points against the Jazz, reaching that plateau a crazy five times out of their previous eight meeting, ending up victorious only once).
I sincerely believe that the addition of Ricky Rubio makes a big enough difference though and will make the Suns far more competitive against the Jazz than in the recent past.
That said, if these two teams only faced each other twice I would predict a Utah Jazz two-game sweep. However, if they play four times as they have the last two seasons, I will give the Suns at least one win.