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Sixers vs. Jazz Betting Odds, Picks, and Prediction (December 9, 2021)

By Philip Keidel

Published: Dec 9th, 2021 · 3:46 PM EST

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On Thursday night, the Philadelphia 76ers are home after four games away to take on the Utah Jazz, a team in the midst of a four-game road swing of their own. The Sixers beat the Hornets in Charlotte last night. The Jazz roughed up on the Minnesota Timberwolves last night.

Let’s get into our Sixers vs. Jazz betting pick with player prop predictions, odds, and analysis for this December 9, 2021 matchup.

Sixers vs. Jazz Betting Pick (December 9, 2021)

The NBA schedule for your favorite team, when it is issued every year, should come with a warning label like the ones you find on cartons of cigarettes or bottles of liquor or prescription drugs. The label should say something like this: “CAUTION: BE AWARE THAT YOU ARE ONLY SEEING THE GAMES YOUR TEAM IS SCHEDULED TO PLAY.”

Why would a label like this be useful? Exhibit A: Tonight’s game between the Utah Jazz and the Philadelphia 76ers in South Philadelphia. When the schedule came out, what you saw was that the Sixers were playing the Jazz after playing the Charlotte Hornets in Charlotte to finish a four-game road trip. If you were really astute, you’d know that the Sixers, by the time they take the court tonight, will have played ten of their last twelve games on the road. That’s not exactly a recipe for a high-end basketball product tonight.

But wait, it gets worse. The Jazz played last night in Minnesota, and tonight’s game is the third game of their four-game jaunt that has taken them east to Cleveland, north to Minnesota, now east again to Philadelphia, and ultimately to Washington D.C. on Saturday night. To recap then, the Sixers are road weary from a four-game trip, and the Jazz are in the midst of a fairly rough four-game road trip of their own.

So while the records of these teams say that this is a tantalizing matchup between the 17-7 Jazz (third in the Western Conference) and the 14-11 Sixers (sixth in the Eastern Conference), the reality is that the product on the floor tonight isn’t likely to live up to what these teams could do if they both had two or three days of rest regardless of where the game was played. 

This isn’t a call to shorten the NBA schedule. Everyone knows that’s never going to happen. The owners don’t want to give up revenue. Even if they were willing to do that, the players aren’t interested in the concomitant decrease in their salaries that a shorter schedule would bring. 

What needs to happen, though, is for the ticket buyer to do a little more homework than just looking at the schedule of the home team. Mind you, we’re not suggesting you do this analysis for every game. No one cares whether the Orlando Magic or the Detroit Pistons are playing the second half of a back-to back. But if it’s a good team, and the tickets are going to come at a premium…buyer beware.

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Sixers vs. Jazz Odds

Here’s the line for the Sixers and Jazz at FanDuel Sportsbook:

• Point Spread: Sixers +3 (-110), Jazz -3 (-110)
• Moneyline: Sixers +130 Jazz -154
• Total: 215.5

Bets We Like With a Sixers Win

Sixers to Win and Under 215.5 Total Points (+310, FanDuel Sportsbook)

To be clear, we don’t like the Sixers in this game even a little bit. But if you insist on taking them to win, you might as well take the under, too, because the Jazz scored 136 points in Minnesota last night before flying halfway across the country to play this game tonight. If the Sixers are going to beat the Jazz, it’s likely to be in a rock fight.

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Bets We Like Independent of Outcome

Donovan Mitchell Under 25.5 Points (-125, Caesars Sportsbook)

We really hate to go against our own advice here. Usually we say that “the line is telling you something” is an old wives’ tale. In this instance, though, this line screams under. Mitchell scored 36 points in 34 minutes last night, and it was the fourth straight game of 30 or more points for him. What this line is really telling you, in our opinion, is that Mitchell cannot continue to shoot the three-point shot as effectively as he has over those past four games (18-42, a 43% clip). His career rate from the arc is 36%. Regression is imminent.

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Joel Embiid Under 24.5 Points (-110, DraftKings Sportsbook)

Local sports media are notoriously in the bag for star players, and NBC Sports Philadelphia is no exception especially where Joel Embiid is concerned. All you heard about in the post-game show last night is how Embiid had carried the Sixers to two straight wins in Charlotte, all the points he scored, all the rebounds he had, etc. They glossed over two significant facts. The first is that the Hornets’ only competent center, Mason Plumlee, missed both games due to COVID-19 protocols. The second (and related) is that Embiid shot 33 free throws in those two games. Rudy Gobert isn’t going to put Embiid on the line nearly that often.

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Utah Jazz Over 109.5 Points (-113, Barstool Sportsbook)

Yeah, we opined that Donovan Mitchell isn’t going over 30 points again tonight. He’s not the only player on the Jazz, and this team has scored 110 or more points in six of their last seven games. In three of those six games, they scored at least 120 points. Only their travel schedule brought this number under 110 — but the Sixers are pretty tired, too.

Sixers vs. Jazz Prediction

The Sixers have every right to be pleased with the way they performed on their recent road trip. The narrow loss to the Boston Celtics in Boston could have led the Sixers to feel like “here we go again.” Instead, they hung another loss on the dislikable Atlanta Hawks and dispatched a shorthanded Charlotte team twice in three nights. Everyone involved should be pleased. Unfortunately, the jump in quality from a Hornets team missing three starters to a Jazz team that, while tired, is healthy…that’s too much water to carry tonight.

Pick: Jazz -3.5 (-108, Barstool Sportsbook)

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