The San Antonio Spurs play host to the Utah Jazz at AT&T Center on Monday.

The Jazz (19-16) looked to be a flukey team through the opening weeks of the season, but this club is proving they're no outlier. They still sit above .500 25 games into the year and enter this matchup winning seven of their last 12 games. Many people expected this team to collapse after a hot start, and it's encouraging to see this club hang around. They're actually only a few games out of the top spot in the west, and it's shocking since they parted ways with Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Bojan Bogdanovic in the offseason. This is now Lauri Markkanen and Jordan Clarkson's show, with both guys having career years.

The Spurs (10-22) come into this matchup losing four of their last five games. That has San Antonio sitting 14th in the west, just one game ahead of the Houston Rockets in last. Many people believe Houston has the more talented team of these two clubs, and a last-place finish in the west is not out of the question. This is an organization that made the postseason for nearly 25 years straight, but they're finally in rebuild mode. That's inevitable for every team at some point, but young pieces are in play to get this team out of it. Keldon Johnson, Tre Jones and Devin Vassell look like the new core, and it'll be interesting to see who they add or get rid of in the coming years.

Utah has dominated this series over recent years, winning five of their last seven games in this series.