PHILADELPHIA — The line at the post office is out the door. Your street flashes with more neon than the Vegas strip. Santa seems to show up everywhere, from the mall around the corner to the supermarket — a grocery, for goodness sake — down the street.
Yep, it's that's time of year.
Time, that is, for the Jazz's annual pre-Christmas trip.
It's a six-gamer for Utah this season, beginning with tonight's visit to Philadelphia, with stops to follow Tuesday in Washington, Wednesday in New Jersey, Friday in Boston, next Sunday in Detroit and Dec. 22 in Chicago.
"I think maybe it's not gonna be easy," said Raul Lopez, the Jazz's rookie point guard who never traveled nearly so much while playing in his native Spain.
"But, you know, you need to be (tough) mentally," Lopez added, "because that's the NBA, and you can't change the rules."
For the Jazz, with five rookies on their 14-man roster, this week's journey is unlike any most have ever taken.
"One (game) — or maybe two," Sasha Pavlovic said of the longest trip he endured while playing in Eastern Europe.
For Curtis Borchardt, it was a three-gamer to Puerto Rico while he was at Stanford, and it lasted five or six days. "That was a long trip," he said.
This one lasts 10 days, and then — after one game at home vs. Toronto the night after Christmas — it's back out on the road for two more, Jan. 2 at Memphis and Jan. 3 at Houston.
"We need to win on the road," said Pavlovic, well aware the 12-10 Jazz are 11-3 at home and just 1-7 away from the Delta Center so far this season, matching their worst eight-game road start since they opened 0-8 in 1979-80.
This trip, Lopez suspects, will "help chemistry."
"Make us closer," Pavlovic said.
Whether they want to be or not.
"You're with each other a lot more than you are at home," Borchardt said of NBA travel. "You're on the bus together, you're on the plane together. You're going to shootarounds, and breakfasts, and all sorts of different things."
Borchardt, who broke his wrist in Utah's Friday-night loss to Sacramento, didn't fly with the Jazz to Philadelphia.
But already in his young pro career, he's had a taste of how tough extended travel can be — including a mid-November four-gamer in which the Jazz went 1-3, notching their lone road win of the season at Minnesota.
"That's part of the reason why teams struggle on the road — you get tired, and you're not comfortable with your surroundings," Borchardt said. "But that's the challenge you have to deal with."
Traditionally, the Jazz have dealt rather well with their pre-Christmas travel.
They've hit the road just before the holiday for a trip of three games or more every year but one (the 1998 lockout) since 1984, and — according to statistics compiled by Jazz historian Bill Kriefeldt — have wound up .500 or better in every year but two since 1992.
They've never come home winless from such a trip. Last season, they went 3-0 in Dallas, Memphis and Houston. Against the 76ers, whom they face tonight, the Jazz are 5-3 in pre-Christmas trip games.
This season, their road struggles to date well-chronicled, they only hope to have as much success as in the past.
"If we are able to win games," Lopez said, "I think it's gonna be a great trip."
If not . . .
"When times get tough," Borchardt said, "sometimes cancerous things happen within a team."
'Tis not the season, though, to think so negatively.
Not with ridiculously long lines to wait in, lawn animals to make glow, and Santas to dodge in the cereal aisle.
Road tales
With road games upcoming against Philadelphia, Washington, New Jersey, Boston, Detroit and Chicago, a look at how the Jazz have fared on their annual pre-Christmas trip, dating back to 1984:
Wins: 49
Losses: 45
Points for: 9,336
Points against: 9,338
Opponent defeated most: Washington, seven times (7-1)
Opponent lost to most: Cleveland, seven times (3-7)
Longest trip: 7 games
Shortest trip: 3 games
Source: Jazz historian Bill Kriefeldt
E-MAIL: tbuckley@desnews.com