Atlanta • Back in the days of Frank Layden and Jerry Sloan, the Jazz used to put in an annual request to the league to spend the games in the lead-up to Christmas out on the road, with the coaches believing that such a schedule was paramount to eliminating peripheral distractions.
With stops in Atlanta, Charlotte and Miami this weekend, this season marks the first time since Dec. 2015 that the franchise went on the road immediately preceding Christmas, and even that was just a one-off, in Oakland against the Warriors. The organization’s last real pre-Christmas trip came the season before, when the Jazz spent six games spanning Dec.