The Boston Celtics travel to Salt Lake City to face the Utah Jazz at Vivint Smart Home Arena on Wednesday.

The Celtics (37-21) have had to play a lot of games without Kemba Walker recently but it really hasn't hurt their results. In fact, they come into this matchup winning 13 of their last 16 games in total. That has actually shifted them up to the three-seed in the east, just two games back of the Toronto Raptors in second. The thing that makes them so dangerous is their defense, ranked fourth in points allowed. That's been commonplace for this franchise over recent years and it's clear that defense is part of this franchise's DNA. What's also nice is the emergence of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Daniel Theis. That pairs nicely with Gordon Hayward having a bounce-back year and it's scary to think how good they'll look once Walker is back and fully healthy.

The Jazz (39-17) find themselves in the midst of one of their worst slumps of the season, losing eight of their last 12 games in total. What's really strange about that is that half of those losses have came against teams who are well below .500. That ironically followed up a stretch in which Utah won 21 of their previous 22 games and it's hard to understand this team's true identity. One thing that we do know is that they thrive off of their defense, ranked Top-10 in both points allowed and defensive efficiency. Those numbers have fallen off in the most recent stretch though and they need to get back to stifling their opponents on that end of the floor to end this slide.

Utah swept the two-game season series over Boston last season. Prior to that, the Celtics won 12 of their previous 15 games over the Jazz dating back to 2011.