Utah Jazz Blog

This was one of the hardest losses that the Jazz have had to explain in a long, long time.  The game was seemingly wrapped up as a Jazz “W”, not once but twice… but Miami escaped with a triple overtime victory behind Dwayne Wade’s 50 points.

There were so many mental lapses by the Jazz that I am just going to explore a few of them:

1. With Jazz up 5 with 50 seconds left Andrei Kirilenko gets called for an offensive foul as he passes the ball off.  Only 5 seconds had run off the clock since 2 Heat free throws.   AK clearly shouldn’t have driven toward the basket to put himself in that type of situation especially since he was only passing it out of there anyway.
2. After a bucket by Miami cut the lead to 3 with 35 seconds left, the Heat pressured the Jazz in the backcourt.  Korver found AK to get the ball over half court and, unfortunately for the Jazz, ahead of the defense.  AK passed to Millsap and his dunk was blocked by Jermaine O’Neal.  Total time taken off clock: 9 seconds.
3. After a missed Miami free throw, Millsap had a legit shot at the rebound with 15 seconds left.  The ball ended up out of bounds off Paul.  The replay was unclear who it went off.  Not so much a mental error but had Millsap handled the board cleanly, Jazz probably walk away with the win.
4. After scoring 8 straight points to open up overtime with 2:46 remaining the Jazz didn’t score again but they could have easily won without silly turnovers and better clock management.  Korver was called for an offensive foul as he fought to create a passing lane for D-will (who shouldn’t have picked up his dribble which created Korver’s urgency).  This was followed by a Mario Chalmers steal on the next possession.
5. Jazz ball with 22 seconds left in OT, tied at 115… last shot, right? Wrong. Carlos Boozer took a tough, contested fadeaway with seconds left. The Jazz could have definitely found a better shot than that and they inexcusably allowed D-Wade to have a crack at winning the game (Wade, however, did miss a few of these opportunities but that doesn’t excuse the mental errors).

It is unfortunate that the Jazz made these errors because they played a great opening 47 minutes. They could have been headed to Orlando with a great win under their belt, now they could be looking at a potential three game losing streak. Some notes:

• Utah wore their home white uniforms because Miami was wearing special “El Heat” uni’s as part of Noche Latina 2009. The NBA promotes Noche Latina as a way to thank and recognize their fans in Latin America and U.S. Hispanic communities. I can’t help but see it as just another way to sell more jerseys. Why were the “El Heat” jerseys a variation of their road black jersey rather than a variation of their home white jersey? I am guessing because the black jersey is a better seller. “The NBA has one of the largest and fastest-growing Hispanic fan bases in U.S. professional sports…” said Saskia Sorrosa, Sr. Director of Marketing for the NBA. One of the largest/fastest-growing? Is that really saying much? How many major U.S. professional sports are there?
• You can’t help but wonder if this was a bit of a audition for Carlos Boozer with the Heat. He started out with a great 1^st quarter with 8 points on 4 of 6 shooting along with 5 boards and 3 assists. Booze ended the extended game with 20/13 but he is still struggling with defense, timing and handling the ball. 
• C.J. Miles put in two early threes but only played 15 minutes. I have to think it might be partly due to the fact that all 5 of his shots came from deep.
• Mental error by the Heat (although the Jazz easily won this category): rookie Michael Beasley, a power forward, took a inbounds pass and launched a half court three pointer with 3 seconds left in the first quarter… probably could have found a better shot than that.
• I would guess that the Jazz play less day games than any other team.  With relatively so few Sunday games on the Jazz schedule and no ABC games, it seems odd when the Jazz take the court before noon Mountain time as they did today and last weekend in Toronto. Day games only seem to happen on extended Eastern road trips for the Jazz.
• Korver was hot and had a great game. He scored 25 on 10 of 16 FGs (4-7 3PT) and had two huge blocks that led to Jazz fast-break buckets.
• AK perplexes me. He will make a beautiful scoop shot as he did early in the 4^th then an amazing touch pass to Millsap for a lay-up seconds later. And then at times he looks like the most awkward, uncoordinated guy out there as he drives to the hoop and throws up weird off balance shots with his arms flailing all over the place.
• Deron seemed to tweak his back as he scrambled and tangled with D-wade fighting for a loose ball.  He played the rest of the game for a total of 51 minutes but I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard more about this.
• Memo shoots 54% from deep in Jazz victories while only 26% in Jazz loses.  Okur was 2 of 4 from three point land today… should have been a Jazz victory.
• Jazz haven’t won in Miami since 2003. Wade is 10-1 against the Utah in his career.
• I really appreciate Jazz P.A. announcer Dan Roberts, especially after hearing the Miami version for regulation plus three overtimes. “It reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeallllllllllllllllly geeeeeeeeeeeeets anooooooooooooooooooying!!!!!!!!!!!!” Roberts is the best.

Well, on to Orlando for yet another test (back to back, coming off 3 OT, up against a very good Orlando team, last game of long trip). Can the Jazz stop the bleeding?

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