SALT LAKE CITY — In sports, when you find yourself in the midst of a losing slump, you can use it as a time to figure out how strong you are or if you have what it takes to overcome the adversity. After losing five of their last six games, Utah Jazz players are having some hard conversations with each other and taking some hard looks in the mirror individually as they work to regain some momentum to get back on the winning track.
The Jazz face the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday at Vivint Arena at 7 p.m.
Since their most recent loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, team members have engaged in some heart-to-heart talks in an effort to clear the air and understand what they need to do to play better. Reserve center Ed Davis said the team is going through a rough period, but the time off has been productive.
“It’s a long season. You can look at it as a good thing, like now we’re getting our struggles out early rather than having this happen in February, March or April. But you can’t look past it and be blind to it.” — Utah Jazz center Ed Davis
“We’re down because we want to be in a better position than we’re in now with a 12-10 record, but we can’t go back in the past. We can just take it one game at a time,” Davis said. “We’ve got a favorable stretch coming up with a lot of home games and games that we should win.
“We just got to take one game at a time and handle business tomorrow and go from there,” Davis said.
He noted that though Utah is struggling, it’s too early in the season to overreact and make too much of the team’s current difficulty.
“It’s a long season. You can look at it as a good thing, like now we’re getting our struggles out early rather than having this happen in February, March or April,” he said. “But you can’t look past it and be blind to it.”
Davis said the team’s current issues are bringing out some important internal issues being addressed inside the locker room.
“You really see people’s true colors when you’re struggling,” he said. “You learn a lot about people because when stuff is going wrong, it’s easy to point a finger.”
He said sometimes these kind of situations make it easy for teams to try to make big changes, but the better move is to figure things out within the team and coaches.
“You always want open, honest communication no matter if it’s going to hurt someone’s feelings or if it’s not something you want to hear — you want that (communication),” he added.
Davis said for the Jazz to meet their own expectations, they’ll have to improve their mindset so they can play with more confidence, particularly against mediocre teams.
“We got Memphis tomorrow, we’re supposed to win tomorrow,” he said. “You can’t look past them. But we’ve got to beat them. Some people might not say it, but long story short, we got to win tomorrow. It’s not a must-win, but it’s a game that we should win — no question.”