The Utah Jazz play host to the Minnesota Timberwolves at Vivint Arena on Friday.

The Timberwolves (12-12) have been all over the map this season, and a 12-12 record is a good indicator of where this team is at right now. There were some lofty expectations coming into the year, but the Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns combination hasn't worked quite as expected. Towns actually got injured last week, though, and likely won't return for at least a month. Ironically, D'Angelo Russell and Anthony Edwards have been playing some of the best basketball since that injury, while Rudy is coming off his best game of the year. The French center had 15 points and 20 rebounds in their most recent win over the Indiana Pacers, and fans want to see him play like that more consistently going forward.

The Jazz (15-12) got off to an unbelievable start with a 10-3 record, but it's been downhill since then. They have just five wins in 14 games since that hot start, but that's the team everyone expected to see at the beginning of the season. It was encouraging to see this rag-tag group play so well, but the talent isn't there for them to be a .500 team. Trading away Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Bojan Bogdanovic will do that to anyone, but it's promising to see this club play such resilient basketball in what's supposed to be a rebuilding year. They've certainly found a major piece of that rebuild, with Lauri Markkanen posting career-high averages across the board

These teams played an overtime thriller on October 26, with Utah prevailing, 132-126. With that said, Utah won three of its four matchups over Minnesota last season.