Utah Jazz Blog

Thank you Mr. Grant Hill. 

The Phoenix Suns veteran dropped a pass out of bounds with 25 seconds left allowing the Jazz to force overtime with a Deron Williams jumper over Steve Nash.  In overtime, the Jazz put the Suns playoff hopes on ice with strong play by Deron and a four point play by Andrei Kirilenko.

It had to be a demoralizing loss for Phoenix that could be comparable to the Jazz collapse in Miami earlier this month.  The Suns had battled back to go up by 7 with 2 minutes left but could not hold on as the Jazz outscored them 9-2 to close out regulation.

Despite walking away with the victory, the Jazz perhaps produced more questions than answers as the playoffs near.  Utah lead Phoenix by 21 early in the third quarter but were extremely fortunate to be able to force overtime.  

• Mehmet Okur had a great first quarter to get the Jazz rolling.  He was cutting to the hoop and making deep jumpers on his way to 26 points on 10 of 15 from the field.  Memo hit the shot of the game (no disrespect to AK’s 4 point play) with 51 seconds left to pull the Jazz within 2.  It was a deep three over Steve Nash and without it going down the Jazz would have been toast.
• D-Will had another great game against Nash.  21 points and 13 assists and two clutch shots in the final 30 seconds of regulation.
• Boozer didn’t play in crunch time and was benched in favor of Millsap for overtime.  
• The Jazz had 23 turnovers leading to 26 Phoenix points. Deron had 7 turnovers at home whereas he had zero giveaways on the road versus this same Phoenix Suns team.
• With the Jazz down one halfway into the overtime period, Andrei Kirilenko hit a three pointer and was fouled by Grant Hill to complete the first four point play of the year for the Jazz… Phoenix would never see the lead again.
• If the playoffs started today (Monday) the Jazz would face Denver in the first round with the Nuggets having home court advantage.  The Nuggets have to be one of the more favorable match-ups that the Jazz could realistically hope for but there is so much that could happen over the remaining 10 games that this match-up is not likely to remain.  
• The Jazz are now 11th in this weeks ESPN NBA power rankings by Mark Stein, 7th in the computerized Hollinger power rankings and 9th in the Jeff Sagarin NBA rankings.

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