Heat continue road trip in Utah

The Miami Heat's win over the Los Angles Clippers Wednesday night stands as one of the Heat's better wins this season. Miami led for virtually the entire night, ran brilliant ball movement for the entire first half, got solid contributions from its surrounding cast and even saw some impactful Greg Oden defense. The Heat's season is certainly trending upward, the blowout loss to the Thunder notwithstanding. The Heat have won three straight and eight of their last 10 games.

In Miami's second stop of its current six-game road trip, the 35-13 Heat will face the 16-32 Jazz, currently dead last in the West. Miami already beat Utah at home Dec. 16, as the Big Three combined to score 77 points in a 117-94 decision. But this team has consistently struggled to defeat the NBA's sub-par teams. The only team Miami has lost against twice this season is the Brooklyn Nets. Saturday night's game will simply come down to whether the Heat can bottle up some of that ball movement from Wednesday night and keep that intensity level high against a bad team.

Moreover, this game appears like another good team to test Greg Oden against. Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter combined to score 31 points and grab 15 rebounds in the Dec. 16 matchup. Both Favors and Kanter are burly centers Oden can match up against. Oden will also have to deal with pick-and-rolls with Gordon Hayward and Alec Burks.

For more on the Jazz, check out SLC Dunk.