SB Nation User Blog: Basketball John

The Downbeat - 11 November 2009 - #98 - The Thin at PG Edition

Basketball John — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:41:46 -0000

Could get ugly tonight in Boston. Doesn't look like D-Will is going to play. Price is out. Rondo vs. Maynor is not good.

I've got the All-star voting widget on your immediate right. It's really easy to use. You don't even have to leave SLCDunk.com to vote.

Another tip, you don't have to select all spots to vote. Just click on the Jazz men and cast your vote. Remember to text and vote from different PCs/mobile devices, etc.

Is it weird that I get concerned if D-Will hasn't tweeted that day?

CJ Miles sans cast. Pretty chill. "I got this."

via Facebook

You know, maybe it's best that we could be missing so many people tonight against Boston. Maybe they'll channel some 2004 vibe? They've been known to have big games, like against the Lakers a couple years back, when some big players have been out. Maybe we actually see a team effort tonight?

If all else fails, unleash Fess and the KOOF.

LateCap - Utah Jazz @ Ny Knicks - W - 95 - 93

Basketball John — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:39:20 -0000

Man, he's rippped.

View full size photo »

Worst win ever?

I shouldn't complain about wins, especially a road win in NY where we haven't won in 5 years. But when you have a 21-point lead against a team that will be scraping the bottom of the league all season, you have to put that away.

The Jazz were held to 95 points against one of the worst defensive teams in the league. On the positive side, you could say they held an opponent to a season-low 93 points, but 62 of those came in the second half.

After going 0-fer in the first half from the arc, you knew they Knicks were going to come out make some in the second half. They did, going 8/19 though it felt like 15/19.

Still, after giving up 33 points in the third, the Jazz still had a 14-point lead heading into the fourth. This looked all too familiar. They were actually holding off the Knicks for the better part of the fourth until one point where I thought there should have been a timeout taken. Sound familiar?

Ronnie B had just made a jumper with a little under 8 minutes to go that gave the Jazz and 84-73 lead. 11 points was pretty good considering the Knicks had somehow got in a groove in the third and having it carry over to start the fourth.

The next possession had Al Harrington make a three-pointer to cut the lead to 8. Not a huge deal, but it was fine to see how the Jazz would respond in that case.

Deron ended up driving and missing a layup with 17 seconds left on the shot clock. The ensuing Knicks possession ended with a Gallinari three from the top of the arc. Bam, 5 point lead.

That's where the timeout should have been called. Sloan's reasoning for not calling timeouts in those situations is that he's not going to call a different play with a timeout, so let's just let them run the play. But what it does do is slow down or stop the momentum and allows your team to re-group. Instead, the Knicks score the next 4 points to get within 1 when Sloan finally calls a timeout.

Too late.

Here are my notes for the Jazz possessions over about this same time period until the end of the game. The first number is how many seconds were left on the shot clock when the Jazz shot. The shots that come with 10-14 seconds on the clock were good. Those that were earlier or later were missed.

14 - d-will running jumper
00 - shot clock violation
10 - brewer made jumper
17 - deron missed layup
16 - millsap - missed drive and jumper
02 - ak three, offen rebound
18 - brewer TO
12 - memo make
10 - boozer make, ak assist
17 - booze fouled down low
07 - booze to on pass
05 - deron TO, stolen
12 - jumper by brewer
19 - offensive fould on williams, jeffries way late getting there.
21 - deron steal and pass to booze, got fouled, booze 1-2
06 - memo missed long jumper
08 - missed deron jumper
24 - memo follow - 1:12
04 - ak missed three - 39.4 left
05 - brewer missed jumper, 10.6 remaining

The Jazz took a lot of shots way early in the shot clock. This wasn't just a fourth-quarter occurrence. I think that was the primary reason why the Knicks were able to come back in the third and the fourth.

What could have been the biggest mistake late is when Ronnie B took the final jumper with 5 seconds left on the shot clock when he could have taken off a few more. A rushed shot with a second left probably wouldn't have been much better, but he had time to try to drive and/or make an extra pass.

Maybe not making an extra pass was for the better as the Jazz passed terribly against the Knicks' zone defense. They had 6 TOs in the fourth quarter alone. It was funny to see NY open the fourth with a man-to-man and then after just one possession where the Jazz got an offensive board, they went right back to the zone. They were in it for almost the entire game. From what I saw, they had 4 guys in the paint at once for the majority of the game. They were daring the Jazz to shoot just like Kobe has dared Ronnie B to shoot the past couple of years. With Korver and CJ out, there's not even that perceived threat of a shooter.

AK though was and has been the most consistent three-point shooter on the team this season. He was on again last night going 5/8 from downtown while finishing with 23 X 6 X 6. Great line from AK and playing like a man that has nothing to lose. You can tell that he doesn't have any pressure at all. He's pretty confident in his shot right now.

Another reason the Knicks came back of course was the defense of the Jazz. The biggest culprits seemed to be Mehmet Okur and Carlos Boozer. Memo was on Al Harrington and Al would just go right by him. That's a terrible mismatch for him. But he burned Boozer too. David Lee was burning Boozer as well. In fact, had the Knicks been able to make a couple of those threes in the first half, this game probably would have ended a lot differently. Not good.

The other biggest problems I saw with both of them was that they didn't down Toney Douglas coming off the pick and roll at all. Memo usually sagged while Boozer would put out one arm to make it look like he was doing something. Douglas got into the lane at will and had most any shot he wanted. And though he's just a rookie, Douglas already had his career-high of 21 against the Jazz. As it turned out, he fell right into the over-confidence trap that the Jazz laid out for him. He ended up taking the last shot and missed a game-tying jumper. All according to plan.

Actually, Deron played good D on him and didn't go for the pump-fakes. As a result, Douglas had to put up a jacknifed-leapin'-leaner that clanged off the back of the basket as time ran out.

Ball-game. Sort of.

If the Jazz play twice this good against Boston tomorrow night, they'll be resting the starters in the fourth quarter.

Some Individual Accolades

Andrei Kirilenko.had 23 points the last time the Jazz won in NY as well. He turned in a 23 & 6 & 6 performance with almost all of those assists going to Carlos Boozer. AK could probably be co-MVP of the team at this point in the season.

Memo had a quite 18 & 12 on 7/15 shooting. His biggest shot came as a putback of Deron's missed jumper late in the game. That broke a 93-93 tie with a little over a minute left. But please Memo, for all that is holy, could you please practice taking a step back before shooting a three? He has to leave at least 2 points a night on the floor because of that toe on the line. Either that or get a Tom Dempsey shoe:

Deron had a rough game shooting-wise and had 7 turnovers. Nasty stuff. However, he did have a season-high 16 assists. He probably could have had 3-4 more but the receiver couldn't finish at the basket or got fouled hard. One of those was after a steal and dish to Boozer. Booze tried to put it down with two hands but got fouled.

That got me thinking, the only hammer dunk I remember from Boozer came in last year's playoff game against the Lakers at the end where he drove left on Gasol and finished with his left hand. He could be a ferocious dunker/finisher but chooses to go the non-contact route.

I was ready to give Boozer some praise when he had several deflections and hustle point in the first half but he reverted back to having some big turnovers and stupid fouls. Still, he had 23 & 14 and finished +1 for the game. When do you sell on Boozer? Is he going to come crashing back down? I few more games of 20 & 12 and it might be a good time to sell.

Nobody else really stood out either way. Ronnie B did have a couple of big jumpers in the fourth before his last one. Wes Matthews was decent but had a couple of circus-shot attempts that could have been more under control. And Millsap's performance was forgettable.

So does that sound like we won or lost? We won of course and that's all that matters for now. I couldn't imagine what things would have been like had the Jazz lost another one like that. There seriously could have been a couple of jumpers in the SLC and maybe Sloan in NY.

So we'll hope that the Jazz play up to their opponent when they take on the Celtics tomorrow night in the Garden.

Other notes

Posting and Toasting
Cowhide Globe
TBJ
Living and Dying (Mostly dying right now)
CJ Miles
No tweets from D-Will?
Knicks had a lot of rim-outs and missed layups. This game could have been a lot uglier.
We Matthews has the Giricek two-step down pat. Need to lose it.
With 10:30 left in the third, here's Boler's comment,

If there was a question about letting the knicks back in the game, not the case at least not in the third.
Toney Douglas looks like he's straight out of the 70s.
Great camera work as we got to stare at Layden's (Scott's not Frank's) butt during a timeout for a good 5 seconds.
Forgot this, Ronnie B's block with :29 left on Hughes was the game-saver. It came after another failed attempt from Memo to slow down Ronnie's man on a screen. Ronnie fought over the screen and blocked Hughes' shot with the left hand.
Not a good sign when Deron Williams looks like Larry Bird did late in his career. Bird spent bench time laying on his back on the floor. Deron did the same and was stretching out his back the entire game.
Ronnie P left the game after he popped his big toe.

The Downbeat - 10 November 2009 - #97 - The Defensive Leader Is ??? Edition

Basketball John — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:31:04 -0000

I'm watching the game this morning and will have something up on it later. I was listening on radio and got home in time to watch the final 6 minutes. That sounds familiar...

Barry talked about this on NBA tv last night, but he spoke about Memo's comments after the game where Okur said they played D well all night except for the final 10 minutes. Barry said something to the effect of, "Uh, Memo, we need to have a talk about this."

This is completely implausible, but for a discussion point, it looks like Iverson might be retiring. To me, that's crazy. It almost seems like he's getting blackballed out of the league. Surely he's a fit on some team. His beef seems to be with not starting. Understandable.

Even if the Jazz were able to get him for free, would he be worth it? Is he a cancer in the locker room? He is a scorer, something the Jazz don't have. He doesn't seem like he would fit in the system though. He is a vet though. So purely for speculative and a talking point, would you want him on the Jazz?

With American Thanksgiving coming up, is there anything to be thankful for on this team?

Your top 3 FG% leaders for the Jazz:

Fesenko: 65%

Matthews: 55%

Millsap: 50%

And your 2009-10 3p% leader? Andrei Kirilenko with 47%. What the what?

And this is a bit of a cheat for the DB, but here are your defensive ratings leaders for 2010 so far. This is the points they give up per 100 possessions:

Kosta Koufos: 96

Carlos Freakin' Boozer: 105

So is the rest of the team that bad?

Game Thread - Utah Jazz @ NY Knicks

Basketball John — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:46:30 -0000

by Shawn Rocco - AP

Both teams playing for this man?

View full size photo »

Let's see if we can't just get 1-0, all right boys?

Jazz vs Knicks coverage

Posting and Toasting

Preview - Utah Jazz @ NY Knicks

Basketball John — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:32:26 -0000

More photos » by Julie Jacobson - AP

The number of wins the Knicks hope to have after tonight.

Browse more photos »

How sad are the state of affairs of the Jazz when I will be doing back flips if we win this game tonight? This is a New York team that should be finishing at the bottom of not only the eastern conference, but the league.

We shouldn't have any problem scoring as they give up some of the most points in the league right now. They're ranked 24th in the league in defensive efficiency.

The bad news? Guess who ranks 25th? You don't even need three guesses.

As I mentioned in the Downbeat, this is one of only a couple of games where the team controls their own fate of that first-round pick next season.

That's not going to be what they're playing for primarily, but that pick could be a fra nchise changer. It seems to be that you have to have a couple of those types of guys on your team to compete for a title in today's NBA.

So how do the Jazz win tonight? First, put on some blinders so that they can't see the sidelines and look up into the crowd. Second, please don't let Lee have a big game. And really, it isn't even Lee I'm worried about. I'm more worried about someone like Gallinari or Chandler going off for 40. Or heaven forbid Larry Hughes.

I don't care if we get out of their with a 139-138, just so long as it's in the W column. Get the W and get the heck out of Dodge.

Game Thread coming at 5

Jazz vs Knicks coverage

Posting and Toasting

The Downbeat - 9 November 2009 - #96 - The Big Apple Today Takes the Injuries Away Edition

Basketball John — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:22:24 -0000

Korver and Miles are set to visit the doctor this morning for their respective injuries. Miles should be getting his cast off and Korver will be having his knee re-evaluated. Though I'm sure there are plenty of women along the Wasatch Front that would have given him a free evaluation.

Anyway, since we have nothing to look forward to as far as a trade or other moves, getting these two back is about as much as we're going to get. Not that I'm not excited to get them back, but is it going to be too little, too late for the season?

The team is of course in NYC today. I wonder how much of their road woes has to do with playing in a small market like Utah. Salt Lake is a great place to live and work, etc. But playing in places like NY, LA, and Boston must harden you a bit. As much criticism as the Jazz have received this year, imagine if these same players and expectations were in a big market. In Salt Lake, you have a couple of newspapers that might say something whereas in a big market, there are dozens.

So when the Jazz play on the road, maybe the bright lights and pressure of playing in a big market affects them a bit? So when those that are used to playing in a a bigger spotlight go on the road, suddenly San Antonio or Phoenix or most everywhere else doesn't seem that big.

I couldn't bring myself to watch the Kings game. I shouldn't have checked in at all with the scores and the game thread. I did watch the last 6 minutes where the Jazz put up their typical tease and make it seem like they could come back, but deep down you knew it wasn't going to happen.

If the Jazz lose tonight, it will be 2-3X as maddening. One, they would have lost to a terrible team, again. Second, if they're going to pick up a road win on this trip, NY or Philly would be their best bets. Though, they did beat Boston a couple years back. And most importantly, if they drop one to the Knicks, they're shooting themselves in the foot in regards to the 2010 pick next season. It would suck to have the Knicks make the playoffs by one game.

I haven't seen any word on it yet, but All-star voting should be starting this week if you look to when it started last season. I'll be covering it more on VoteDeron.com, but get your clickers ready.

Game Thread - Sacramento Kings @ Utah Jazz

Basketball John — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:53:06 -0000

Jazz! Kings! It's what's for dinner.

I probably won't be able to make the game thread, but I could check in mobiley.

Preview - Sacramento Kings @ Utah Jazz

Basketball John — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:40:55 -0000

More photos » by Don Ryan - AP

Thankfully we won't have to see any of this.

Browse more photos »

Most players will tell you that they would rather beat a team with everyone healthy than to beat a team that's lost a bunch of players or their superstar player to injury.

Well, I'm sure it's a bit more satisfying for the team to win one like that, but they don't award strength of win points when it comes to the W/L total at the end of the season.

That said, not being able to see Kevin Martin play from a basketball stand point is too bad because he's a great player to watch. I won't miss him killing the Jazz like when he put up 37 against them last season, but it's something to watch. He's averaged almost 23 points a game over the last 11 games against the Jazz. Then again, he is a shooting guard so he should be having some good games against the Jazz.

As a result, it looks like Beno Udrih will get the start tonight. He normally backs up the rookie Tyreke Evans. I don't know for sure, but I imagine they'll move Evans to the 2 in this scenario. That should benefit the Jazz as well because it allows Ronnie B to cover him instead of Deron. At 6' 6", 220, Evans is one of the few that would present a mismatch problem for Deron.

Evans hasn't had a good start so far. He's averaging just 11 & 4 so far and shooting just 35%. Let's hope he doesn't have his career game against the Jazz tonight.

The Jazz should treat this game as taking care of business. They're heavy favorites but shouldn't be looking ahead as the last thing we need is a meltdown heading into the east coast swing next week.

Game Thread coming at 6.

Well, so much for Boozer to the Bulls (from blogabull.com)

Basketball John — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:51:58 -0000

Well, so much for Boozer to the Bulls (from blogabull.com)

Bulls.com:

Chicago Bulls forward Tyrus Thomas suffered a fractured radius of his left forearm during a weight training session this morning at practice. X-rays confirmed the injury and he will undergo surgery tomorrow. Thomas is expected to be out four to six weeks.

The Downbeat - 6 November 2009 - #95 - The 4 p.m. Dinner Edition

Basketball John — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:52:32 -0000

Well, dock me two points from my Jazz fan card. Last night, I was chatting away in the game thread and we went into the half-time break. Went upstairs to get some snacks and came back down ready to go again for the last half of the game. That's the last thing I remember before I woke up to Charles Barkley going on about something. That's right, I passed out for the second half of the best game of the year so far. I didn't realize how taxing that Dallas game was on me I guess.

Anyway, that's why I didn't get a recap up. I'll watch the second half tonight and have something then provided that I can stay awake longer than Morty Seinfeld.

A quick hit from what I did see though. Wes Matthews' play has been great. We're getting some huge contributions from him right now. I think I'm most impressed with his poise. What more could you have asked from him?

Now, I'll probably get some hate mail on this, especially from Danielle, but if he keeps this up, does that make Korver expendable? He's already an expiring contract and will be coming back from surgery. As much as I love KK, if he helps bring a player that helps the Jazz somewhere they have a whole, I'd be all for it.

From Deron's tweet last night,

A lot more fun when we win! All it took was 48 min! Now I can stop being a craby patty as my daughters would say….. Now make it 2 in a row

First, what's wrong with a "craby" patty? They're delicious. Second, let's make it several in a row so that we can show we win on the road.

So what does it take for the Jazz to make the NBA's top 10 (5)? They're the only one of two games on the night. As much as they wanted to just show all LeBron James highlights, they felt they had to squeeze a couple in there for the Jazz

I'll write more about this when I finally get a recap up of the game 24 hours later, but give credit where credit is due. Booze had a heck of a game last night. And whether you want him traded or kept with the team, this is the kind of game you wanted him to have.

The most impressive part was his hustle (that's right, I said it) and D on Timmy. He had three steals and a couple of jump balls.

Is all forgiven now? No. But this type of performance is the best for everyone's interests.