Utah @ Toronto preview

Last Meeting ( Jan 1, 2019 ) Utah 116, Toronto 122

It appears as if the Toronto Raptors will need every win they can muster to keep pace with the red-hot Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference this season. Lately, they've been able to stay on track and will try to push their own winning streak to seven games when they host the Utah Jazz on Sunday.

Behind a career-high 33 points from Norman Powell, Toronto picked up a 90-83 victory at Orlando on Friday, surviving its worst shooting performance of the season (36.9 percent) to finish November with a 10-3 record. "Sometimes a guy just finds a groove in the middle of the game when nobody else has any flow going," Raptors guard Fred VanVleet told reporters of Powell, who shot 12-of-18 while his teammates were 19-of-66. "So you want to ride that out as long as you can. Norm took over the offense by himself." Toronto point guard Kyle Lowry (thumb) could return for this one, which would likely send Powell back to the bench following 10 straight starts. The Jazz rode a hot hand of their own in Bojan Bogdanovic (33 points) in Friday's 103-94 win at Memphis to improve to 1-2 on its current five-game road trip.

TV: 6 p.m. ET, AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain (Utah), Sportsnet (Toronto)

ABOUT THE JAZZ (12-7): Bogdanovic scored 16 of his 33 points in the fourth quarter at Memphis as Utah completed a rally from a 15-point halftime deficit. "It shows how unselfish we are, especially Donovan (Mitchell)," Bogdanovic told reporters of the team's star guard, who had 20 points but took a back seat to his hot-shooting teammate down the stretch. "Our best player, he's supposed to take last shots in the last couple of minutes. ... He told me to take the last shots." Rudy Gobert chipped in 13 points and 13 rebounds for his 11th double-double.

ABOUT THE RAPTORS (14-4): Pascal Siakam, who leads Toronto in scoring (25.1), was held to a season-low 10 on 4-of-22 from the floor at Orlando. He did chip in 13 rebounds and five assists and was a big part of a defensive effort that stifled the Magic. "We had a stretch of 12 consecutive stops in the third quarter," coach Nick Nurse told the media. "That's about as high as it gets. It was excellent."

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Jazz F Ed Davis had five rebounds Friday after a 12-game absence due to a leg injury.

2. Raptors C Marc Gasol is averaging 3.8 points while shooting 18.2 percent over his last four games.

3. Siakam averaged 22 points and 8.5 rebounds to help Toronto take both meeetings last season.

PREDICTION: Raptors 110, Jazz 102