Some say it was one of the most blatant examples of tanking by the most heinous culprit of basketball\u2019s trendiest crime. Others say that sitting your starters in the fourth quarter doesn\u2019t really matter when you couldn\u2019t pick half of Utah\u2019s starters out of a lineup. Regardless of public opinion, whatever happened against the Denver Nuggets may have secured the 5th-best odds in the final season of Utah\u2019s tanking era.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s a good thing, too, considering the NBA is this<\/strong> close to making the draft process completely incomprehensible to the average viewer beginning in the 2026-27 season. Who knows? Maybe the AJ Dybantsa-bolstered Jazz will make a run at the NBA Finals next season and still find their pick climbing in the lottery, considering the fact that nearly every team in the league is about to have an incentive to tank near season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n But I digress. That\u2019s an argument for a future article, and I\u2019m really running low on time before the Jazz tip off in Phoenix. To be continued.<\/p>\n The Utah Jazz (21-53, 14th in West) are hosted by the Phoenix Suns (40-33, 7th in West) as the Great Tank Race takes its turn. Leaving Dallas in the dust thanks to the Mavericks\u2019 foolish victory against Portland (but hey, at least Cooper Flagg is locking up the ROY race<\/a>, right guys?), Utah turns its focus to the Sacramento Kings. The Kings, now just two games separated from the Jazz with eight games remaining in the season, can feel the Ainges breathing down their necks as the wins pile up and the odds tumble down.<\/p>\n The Jazz won\u2019t complain about that, and certainly don\u2019t plan on tripping up the Phoenix Suns as Devin Booker and company desperately compete to avoid the 7th seed or worse \u2014 though it may be too little too late to catch Houston, sitting 4.0 games ahead of Phoenix on the Western staircase. Losing 6 of their last seven games hasn\u2019t helped matters in that regard, either. Losing to Boston, San Antonio, or even Denver is forgivable (I hear all the cool teams are losing to the Nuggets these days), but stumbling against the Bucks and Raptors suggests that the Suns are beginning to show their spots, slowing down from their supernova start to the season and settling into the midfield.<\/p>\n Two teams with distinct goals, Phoenix should feel perfectly comfortable handling their visitors, even with Dillon Brooks remaining inactive.<\/p>\n The Jazz, absent of George, Collier (hamstring twins!), Markkanen, JJJ, Kessler, and Nurkic, have been leaning on youngsters like Ace Bailey, Cody Williams, and Brice Sensabaugh to incredibly promising results. Bailey, in particular, turned a mediocre rookie season \u2014 with promise! \u2014 into an All-Rookie team lock with his recent play in an increased role. Cody Williams has shed the \u201clesser brother\u201d caveat for the most part in 2025-26, and just posted 24 points and 7 assists in Mile High City. Brice Sensabaugh is a nuclear-powered scoring machine and may be one of the best bench scorers in basketball in a year\u2019s time.<\/p>\n Expect these names to stand out in Will Hardy\u2019s rotations against Phoenix.<\/p>\n Now with just eight games standing between the Utah Jazz and the end of the season, we\u2019re counting down the final days in which Utah won\u2019t care about winning. The final moments of seeing no-names and scrubs populate the playing surface in crunch time. The final days in which complacency is the norm, and cheering for victory feels bittersweet.<\/p>\n So enjoy the end of an era. Next season, the Utah Jazz promise to be competitive, and a new age will begin. On to Phoenix.<\/p>\n How to watch Utah Jazz vs Phoenix Suns<\/p>\n Date: Saturday, March 28, 2026 Calvin Barrett<\/a> is a writer, editor, and prolific Mario Kart racer located in Tokyo, Japan. He has covered the NBA<\/a> and College Sports<\/a> since 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some say it was one of the most blatant examples of tanking by the most heinous culprit of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":688977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,275440,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,148279],"class_list":{"0":"post-688976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-jazz-game-preview","12":"tag-phoenix","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa","19":"tag-utah-jazz-game-coverage"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116309494624840756","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Time: 8:00 PM MT
Location: Mortgage Matchup Center, Phoenix, AZ
Channel: Jazz+, KJZZ
Odds: PHO -16.5<\/p>\n