Utah Jazz Blog

Déjà vu.

The Jazz lead by 24 early in the third quarter and then, almost as if sensing what the fans expected but wouldn’t say, allowed the New York Knicks to come all the way back to take the lead.  Maybe they are challenging themselves. Maybe they want to keep the fans interested.  Maybe they are just toying with our emotional state.  Maybe this experience will turn out to be a positive come playoff time.

In the end, of course, the Jazz rallied down the stretch just as they had done against the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night.  Check out the gameflow from this win over New York:

Now compare it to the win over the Phoenix Suns:

Take into account that the game-flow from the Suns game included overtime so it is condensed a little more than the New York game-flow.  All in all, these two games were two games that Utah should have coasted to, but at the same time, were lucky not to lose.  But in the end all that matters is that the Jazz head to Portland with two home wins under their belt and will try to correct their road woes against the Blazers on the second night of a back to back.

• Andrei Kirilenko had to leave the game after jamming his finger in the rim, AK was in street clothes for the second half after only playing 9 minutes.  It doesn’t appear too serious but given the quick turn-around for tomorrow’s game it is any body’s guess whether Andrei will be in the lineup or not.
• Deron Williams had another fantastic game with 24 points and 13 assists.  Deron really has been turning it on when needed the most hitting clutch jumpers and pushing the ball when it matters most. D-Will is itching closer and closer to Chris Paul for the NBA assist title: Paul 10.9 assists/game, Williams 10.6 assists/game.  
• Carlos Boozer had a relatively good game, although I am not really sure what that means these days.  Booze had 21 points and 11 boards on 8 of 13 shooting.
• Brewer and Millsap were the energy for the Jazz when it was needed most. Paul came up with a few huge buckets and rebounds when the Knicks threatened and Brewer was up to his usual hustle, generating multiple layup attempts.
• Memo Okur was in foul trouble for much of the game and never really got into the flow.  Memo finished with just 8 points in 21 minutes.  Perhaps he can follow with a big game in Portland since he played relatively few minutes tonight.
• The Jazz finish the season at 15-15 against the “weaker” Eastern Conference while they are currently 31-12 against the “stronger” Western Conference… Kinda makes you scratch your head. The positive is that if the Jazz end up in a tie-breaker that comes down to conference record, they will win it.
• No other meaningful games for Jazz fans on the scoreboard Monday night.  Tuesday is a different story with the Mavs, Spurs, Nuggets, Hornets and of course Blazers (vs. Jazz) all in action.

Do you think the Jazz can breakthrough on the road against the Blazers?

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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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Ouch. Another winnable road game down the drain. Such a great game full of so much bad defense, unexpected heroes (for the Suns) and disappointments (for the Jazz).

Honestly, I thought that the Suns lost the game with 8:10 left in the game when they took their best player out, Louis Amundson.  Amundson won this game for the Suns with his hustle, blocking shots, and putting in 10 points on 5 of 6 shooting. The funny thing is, Amundson is perhaps the least productive player in Utah Jazz history… Here is his career line with the Jazz:

Despite the great former Jazzman’s performance, the Jazz and Suns were tied with 49 secs left after Ronnie Brewer hit a jumper.  Following a timeout, Grant Hill hit a tough fade away in the key to regain the lead with 31 seconds left.  It was definitely a difficult shot, so credit the veteran for coming through.   Now this is usually the type of situation that the Jazz thrive in. When almost every team in the league would call a timeout, Jerry Sloan and the Jazz usually don’t, preferring to keep the defense on their heels rather than let them talk it over and get set.  But to my surprise, Jerry Sloan called a timeout himself with 27 seconds left.  The only person more surprised than me perhaps was Deron Williams, he kept running the offense, unable to hear the unexpected timeout whistle. After the timeout, Deron missed a 17 footer but Memo got the Jazz another shot with a offensive board.  Unfortunately for the Jazz Memo forced up a horrible shot with 5 seconds left and that was that.  Not the shot you want to go down with.

• Boozer’s play is still frustrating me as I am sure it is to many fans of the Utah Jazz.  And actually, it all started about a year ago, continued through the playoffs and through the Olympics and through most of this season.  I have always defended Carlos when fans have ridden him for his injury issues but this seems to be a major confidence issue and I’m really not sure if there is an end in sight.  His box-scores are generally okay but if you watch closely, Carlos is really struggling.  He is fumbling balls, making careless decisions and costing the Jazz points and momentum at key times in the game.  Boozer got blocked 4 times in the games (twice by Shaq, once by Hill and once by Amundson). To my liking, Sloan pulled Booze with 3:17 left in favor of Okur.
• Deron Williams played a great game and got the Jazz back in it with back to back three balls when the Jazz trailed by 7 with less than 5 minutes to play.  D-will was having his way most of the night on his way to 25 points and 10 assists.
• Kyle Korver continued to impress with his hot shooting (5-8 from deep).  He is deadly at the moment if he gets any sort of an open look… far cry from January when he was struggling mightily (most likely due to his injuries).
• Props to Grant Hill.  The guy has battled back to play in every game this season.  He finished with 26 points including the shot that put the Jazz against the wall.
• Can’t help but start to wonder if the Jazz would be better off at times with Ronnie Price rather than Brevin Knight.  I think Knight is a fine player and solid backup but Price brings more energy and better shooting.  Coming into this season, I though Knight’s biggest strength was not turning the ball over but Brevin had 3 costly turnovers in 9 minutes against Phoenix.
• The Jazz and Suns each shot 27 free throws… the Shaq-lead Suns made 6 more of theirs… ball game.

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It may have been the best all-around game for the Jazz this season despite a horrible opening 5 minutes to the game.  Utah played inspired defense that limited Houston to just under 35% shooting which translated into energy on the offensive end and a solid home victory over the hot Rockets.

• Player of the game was Ronnie Brewer. Ronnie had 17 points on only 7 shots from the field and played with an enormous amount of energy that was contagious to the rest of the team.  Gotta love Ronnie’s second half reverse dunk as well, kinda reminded me of Dwight Howard’s “Superman” dunk, how he really threw it in rather than dunking it.
• If not for hot three point shooting by the Rockets, this would have been a blowout.  Houston was 10 of 26 from downtown, 38.5% which was actually better than their overall percentage of 34.8%.  They really found their groove at the end of the second quarter and carried it into the early third quarter to come back on the Jazz and even take a brief lead (see game flow above)
• The Jazz bench has got to look scary to opponents with Andrei Kirilenko, Kyle Korver and Paul Millsap.  Really the Jazz have 8 starters right now as all three of those guys could be on the floor in crunch time.  Think about it, it is perfectly reasonable to see a lineup of AK47, Korver, Millsap and Deron Williams along with either Boozer or Okur at the end of a big game.  Deron is really the only player that has got to be in there, the other “pieces” are quick interchangeable and Sloan can throw many different effective lineups out there. Kyle Korver was +16 and Millsap was +12 against Houston.  
• If the Jazz happen to draw Houston in the first round for the third straight year, I think that Jazz players and fans would feel quite confident even if Houston had the home court advantage again.  If I were a Houston fan, I would be routing for just about any other 1st round match-up, it would be demoralizing to lose to Utah for the 3rd straight season.
• Pretty sure the Jazz are now 6-0 on national TV this season, but I am guessing that all of those games were played in Utah.  The Jazz have another national TV game tonight in Phoenix on ESPN to make an attempt at 7-0.  This very well could be the first time that the Jazz have played on national TV on back to back nights.
• After years of lobbying, the Jazz have been selected to play in Europe this upcoming preseason.  Utah will take on the Chicago Bulls in London on October 6 and will play at least one more game in a yet to be named city as part of NBA Europe Live 2009.  Jazz players and management have been trying to play in Europe ever since their scheduled preseason trip to Russia was cancelled in the wake of a terrorist attack at a school in 2005. 
• At halftime, Charles Barkley was complaining that Karl Malone set an illegal pick on the Stockton shot that won the 1997 Western Conference Finals. I have seen that play hundreds and hundreds of times and I still get goosebumps from that play.  I have seen that play hundreds and hundreds of times and I have never heard anybody mention Malone’s screen.

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Deron Williams took it upon himself in the third quarter to lead the Jazz to a rare road victory and win number 43 of the season.  D-Will was 6 for 6 in the quarter with 4 assists on his way to 24 points and 11 assists in the game.

Memo Okur was lighting it up early for Utah but had to leave after he was poked in the eye by Chucky Atkins of the Thunder. Memo had 12 points in 12 minutes when his night was ended with blurry, double-vision.  The Jazz were able to pick up the slack and had a good defensive effort leading them to the victory.

• The Jazz seemed in control for the duration of the game and never let the Thunder get the sellout crowd too excited. The key was the 19 turnovers that were forced by the Jazz leading to 23 points.
• Booze was only 7 for 19 shooting but seemed to be getting into the flow of the offense better, finding his way for quite a few easy buckets.
• Apparently, the Kyle Korver twitter feed is not really him but @KyleKorver is still fooling hundreds of people.  Better to be like @jerrysloan when it is obviously not him.
• I’m not sure who is responsible but I am beginning to despise FSN Utah and/or Comcast.  Somebody forgot to flip the switch to the Jazz-Thunder game until 1 minute into the game and completely missing the 40 or so minutes of pregame.  This is far from the first time that this has happened over the years because FSN Utah is basically a sub-channel of FSN Rocky Mountain.  Was anybody watching on DirecTV, did this happen to you?
• Russell Westbrook looks like he is going to be a fine player for the Thunder (22 points, 4 assists). He is quick and has a decent jumper but needs to work on getting his teammates involved (only topped 10 assists twice in last 33 games) if he is going to become a top-notch point guard.
• Andrei Kirilenko had the play of the game when he received a pass from Korver as he cut through the lane.  AK subtly dropped the ball to Boozer yet continued up for the layup without the ball. Boozer was left with a easy finish. Love it when AK is making those type of plays.
• This season’s got to be tough on Matt Harpring and you can’t help but feel for him. Matt battled back from injuries at the beginning of the season but has not found his way into Jerry Sloan’s rotation. The Jazz are so deep at the 2/3 position that Harping has only logged 15 minutes total in the last 4 ball games including a DNP against Oklahoma City.  Matt definitely still has some game in him if his body can hold up but it has got to be tough on Kevin O’Connor and the Jazz having Harp on the books for $6 million this season and $6.5 million next season.
• I wonder how the reception was for Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune in his first trip back to Oklahoma City following his remarks that pissed off many of the OKC’ers.  It’s interesting how defensive people can get about their city, of course anybody who has ripper Salt Lake City has found that out as well.   

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The Utah Jazz teamed up with FireCatCreative to create a interactive video campaign to drive season ticket renewals and purchases.  Gotta love Jerry Sloan acting, you know he probably HATES doing that kinda stuff.  Also featured are C.J. Miles, Kevin O’Connor, Craig Bolerjack, Ron Boone, Steve Brown and the Bear.

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The Jazz are off again today preparing for the Oklahoma City Thunder in OKC on Friday. The Thunder had their 4 game home win streak snapped last night by the Bulls 103-96.  The Jazz will be looking for a bit of revenge for the last time they made their way to Oklahoma City and left with a 114-93 spanking.

• Last night the Blazers, Hornets, Nuggets, Rockets and Suns all won… unfortunately for the Jazz, the Hornets, Nuggets and Rockets all could have easily lost but squeaked out victories over mediocre teams.
• Bullets Forever breaks down the Jazz offense from a play late in the 2nd quarter of Tuesday’s Jazz victory. I wonder how many more screens the Jazz have set this season than the Wizards?
• Vote for the Jazz Dancers in the 2009 Dance Team Match-up at NBA.com.  Utah is taking on Minnesota in the 1st round. Not t0o fond of the picture that was chosen for the Jazz; a great photo could take the Jazz Dancers far, this photo will not… not that it matters.
• You can brush up on the Thunder at Daily Thunder and Welcome to Loud City.
• Kevin Durant is 1-6 against the Jazz in his young career with his best game being a 29 point, 10 rebound game at Utah on January 30 of this year (loss).
• Thunder are a respectable 6-4 over their last 10 games including home wins against San Antonio and Dallas.

Jerry Sloan was asked about the Charlie Villanueva Twitter incident:

Growing up in McLeansboro, Ill., Jazz coach Jerry Sloan’s family didn’t get a phone for the first time until his junior year in high school. So you can only imagine the fun Wednesday in trying to explain Twitter to the soon-to-be 67-year-old.

One of the local television stations asked Sloan about Charlie Villanueva sending a tweet (update) from the locker room at halftime of Milwaukee’s game Sunday against Boston and the resulting fallout with Bucks coach Scott Skiles.

“I don’t follow that,” Sloan said. “I don’t even have a computer. I don’t know how to turn one on. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m going to be totally honest. How would you do that?”

Sloan was told that Villanueva could do it through his cell phone. This brought more confusion. “I have a phone, but I don’t know how to use it that way,” Sloan said. “I wish I did, but I didn’t want to be aggravated. I’ve just kind of been that way all along.”

In case you’re curious, you can find Villanueva’s Twitter feed here and while you are at it follow Jazzspin on Twitter too.

The magic of Twitter also let us know that Ronnie Brewer and C.J Miles may have been celebrating their upcoming birthdays together last night at Club Bliss:

The spot is poppin happy birthday cj miles & ronnie brewer of the utah jazz!!! Wow too much gooooooooose! And I don’t event drink gooooose (via @djjuggy)

I think Jerry Sloan’s head just exploded.

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Am I the only one who wishes they were still the Washington Bullets? 

This season it doesn’t really matter what the name on the front of the jersey says because the Washington team is just not very good. Don’t tell that to Jerry Sloan and the Jazz though, who lost in D.C. giving the Wizards their only victory of their first 11 games this season.  Another such loss could have been catastrophic to the Jazz team which is still trying to recover from the debacle on South Beach this past weekend.    The Jazz managed a victory but if you ask Jerry Sloan that is about the only thing they did right.

• The Jazz would not have beat many teams with their play Tuesday night, the Wizards were just really, really bad. Of course, Washington was missing Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler but that is the norm for them, not the exception.  The Wiz are 0-14 in their own division, ouch. I can’t help but think of a article I recently read (sorry can’t recall where) that talked about the no-care attitude that the Wizards locker room has regardless of win or lose… Apparently Darius Songaila is the only player taking things seriously and other players and the team could benefit by following his lead.  Reading stuff like that makes you appreciate what the Jazz have with Jerry Sloan and the team culture.
• Ronnie Brewer was replaced in the starting lineup by Andrei Kirilenko after Brewer showed up late to the team’s 10 a.m. shoot around because he slept late.  Ronnie had a decent game with 13 points on 6 of 10 and logged 24 minutes.  
• Utah started out by shooting 40% in the first half but finished the game at 50.6%.  Washington shot an atrocious 35.6%, it is hard to imagine how bad the Jazz would have had to play to get beat.
• D-will had 8 turnovers to go along with his 8 assists and stuggled with his jumper going 0-5. Deron scored all 4 of his buckets on layups or dunks. 
• Although the Jazz were only +4 while he was on the court, Kyle Korver seemed to be the catalyst in putting the game out of reach.  Kyle was 6-9 shooting and led the Jazz with 15 points on his 28th birthday.

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Not too much to say about the whipping that Orlando put on the Jazz.  It was a game that seemed over just a few possessions in to the game when Orlando jumped out to a 8-2 lead.  Seconds later, it was over for Jerry Sloan who was ejected just 2:12 into the game.  It was quite possibly the quickest ejection in NBA history and Jerry was better off watching this one from a distance.

The ejection did not give the Jazz the kick in the butt that Jerry was probably hoping for, instead Orlando widened its margin to 15-3 and never looked back.  Utah was playing very little defense and the offense was stagnant and off from the get go.

Most loses consist of some underlying lessons or a glimmer of hope.  This loss was different and should be put out of memory as quick as possible.  It now seems like forever ago that the Jazz were riding high and on their way to great things, now every Jazz fan is just looking for  a victory at home on Tuesday against the lowly Washington Wizards.

Looking for any sort of encouragement from this game, I guess it would have to be Carlos Boozer’s offense, particularly in the 2nd quarter.  Booze hit three jumpers on three straight possessions (all Brevin Knight assists) for the Jazz at the beginning of the quarter.  In all the Jazz scored on 6 straight possessions but only made up one point on the Magic during that stretch… obviously, there was a lot to be desired in the Jazz defensive effort.  

Dwight Howard really did look like Superman and the Jazz didn’t have anything remotely resembling kryptonite. Howard finished with 28 pts and 20 rebs but the damage seemingly could have been far greater had this been a close game or had he not missed nine free throws and committed 7 turnovers.

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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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