Jazz (34-19) at Mavericks (20-32)
Today at 6:30 p.m.
American Airlines Center
TV: ROOT Sports
Just one night after dismantling the New Orleans Pelicans 127-94, the Utah Jazz are back on the floor as they are in Dallas looking for a season sweep over the resurgent Mavericks.
Dallas has played better basketball in recent weeks after a difficult start to the season that saw it win 14 of its first 43 games. Since then it has won six of nine games to close within three games of the last playoff spot in the West.
A huge part of that resurgence is because of the play of newly acquired Yogi Ferrell, who the Mavericks signed from the D-League. Ferrell has played big minutes in six games since joining the team and has produced double-figure scoring efforts in the last five games. Included in that was a breakout performance that saw him go off for 32 points on 9 for 11 shooting from beyond the arc in a 108-104 road win over the Portland Trail Blazers.
In those six games, he is averaging 16.3 points on 47.1 percent shooting from distance, while adding 4.5 assists, 2.7 rebounds and 1.7 steals in 36.7 minutes.
Some of the responsibility for keeping Ferrell in check will fall on the shoulders of Utah point guard George Hill. Hill has been a tremendous fit for the Jazz, averaging 17.7 points on a career-high 56.3 effective field goal percentage while handing out 4.1 assists and grabbing 3.5 rebounds.
A huge key for Hill and the Jazz to slow down Ferrell is making sure to have aggressive close-outs so that Ferrell doesn't have any clean looks from the outside. Ferrell does most of his damage from beyond the arc so running him off the 3-point line will be huge.
Utah's best bet for success is to force Ferrell to put the ball on the floor, while still keeping him out of the paint. He can finish at a solid rate from in close, but connects on 37.5 percent of his shots from 10-16 feet, and just 27.3 percent of his attempts from 16-22 feet, according to Basketball-reference.com.