The Utah Jazz don’t often play on Easter and when they do it’s either on the road or a mandatory playoff game. The Miller Family has worked with the NBA to limit Sunday home games to only the mandatory ones in the playoffs since many of their fan base believes in resting on Sunday for church worship. However, when the Jazz have played road games on Easter in the last decade they have fared well as they have won all four games. Even though there will be no basketball this Easter due to the virus, let’s take a trip down memory lane and rank the top four “Easter Eggs” of the last decade.
1. Ricky Rubio Shines vs Former Team:
The date is April 1, 2018. It’s April Fools Day and Easter on the same day. The Jazz are no joke after coming back from a 19-28 record to in the playoff mix. They needed their 44th win to help them in the playoff seeding. They would go on to win 48 games and earn a 5 seed in the playoffs where they would upset the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round. This was one of the greatest regular season comeback stories in NBA history.
In this particular game Ricky couldn’t miss vs the T-Wolves that he played for just the previous year. His former Coach, Tom Thibodeau Even said “The Jazz didn’t miss anything tonight.” Rubio finished with 23 points on 9 shot attempts. He made 5 three-pointers in the game and four other field goals. At times he was streaky during his Jazz tenure but when he was on he could really hit a lot of shots.
Rudy Gobert was another big part of the Jazz winning ways in this game. His stifling defense helped the Jazz hold the T-Wolves to under 100 points. Rudy had four blocks in the game and when you combine the Stifle Tower with an explosive Jazz offense, you get a 24 point win.
2. Jazz beat the best in the West
It’s April 8, 2012. The Jazz are fighting for a spot in the playoffs in a season that was shortened to to an NBA Lockout. They faced a Spurs team in San Antonio but they didn’t flinch. Paul Millsap and Big Al both get double doubles and the Jazz would win by 7 in a close defensive game in which Devin Harris scores 25 points. It would be short lived though as the Spurs would sweep the Jazz shortly after in the playoffs.
Final Score: Utah 91 San Antonio 84
3. Game Time vs Dame Time
It is Damian Lillard’s rookie year and he is playing in Portland against a team from the state he played college ball in. While he didn’t have the best stat line ever he was still solid with 17 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists. While he would go on to be the Rookie of the Year, he wouldn’t be able to get the win over the Jazz on this night.
Thanks to double digit scoring from every starter and a solid performance from Derrick Favors with 18 points, the Jazz won by double digits. Big Al led the team with 24 points and Mo Williams also joined him as the other teammate to record at least 20 points in the game.
Not even a 23 point night from former Jazz man Wes Matthews could stop the Jazz that night. It was truly an Easter to remember.
4. The true Kings of the Court
The Jazz had slowly made progress in their first year under head coach Quin Snyder as they increased their win total from 25 to 38 wins in this season. This game was the least impressive win because the Kings were the least impressive of these four opponents.
While Boogie Cousins definitely was talented with 26 points and former Kansas star Ben McleMore had 20 points, there wasn’t enough to stop the team chemistry of the Utah Jazz. This night was the Rodney Hood “house special” game. The rookie was selected 23rd by the Jazz and showed some promise in his first year in Utah. While he never became the star that some predicted he would become for the Jazz, he was a solid ball player and deserved the game ball or in this case, the game golden egg!
Hopefully the Jazz can continue their winning ways on Easter in the coming decade.