Jazz rally back from 25 point deficit to beat Portland

Down 25 on the road? No sweat. Jazz win 7th on a row against Portland – 2/21/10

// February 22nd, 2010 // Game Summary

When the Jazz were down 25 I just about turned it off. If you had told me then that the Jazz were going to win I would have laughed at you and insulted your family honor. That’s just how I roll. The Jazz opened this game without Mehmet Okur who was home with his new baby and wife. After the 1^st quarter, the Jazz were also without Andrei Kirilenko after leaving the game with back spasms. Side note: back spasms? What exactly are those? I ruptured a disc in my back last year and had lower back surgery to repair the disc and I don’t ever categorize my pain or what happened to me as back spasms. I digress.

After a 14 point 1^st quarter the Jazz had dug themselves into a significant hole. At halftime the Jazz were shooting under 40% while the Blazers were humming happily along at just under 50%. As I recall, during one of the other games against the Blazers we were without Okur and got killed on the boards and the same was true this game. It was even worse without AK as the Blazers absolutely murdered us on boards. Newly-acquired Marcus Camby was pivotal for the Blazers as it seemed like he tipped out about 20 rebounds to turn into offensive rebounds. He finished with 18 rebounds and is credited with 8 offensive boards. I’m not sure how they record stats on offensive rebounds and if his tipouts to his teammates count for his or their boards but he kept them in this game…that and his 4 blocks.

As an answer to Jazz fans’ prayers, the Trailblazers went colder than Hoth in the 2^nd half and finished only shooting 35% from the field…for the game. Brandon Roy played Friday night against Boston and was barely a factor for the Blazers as it looked like he was still bothered by a hamstring that kept him out of 14 games and limited his activity in a few more. However, tonight he was the Brandon Roy of old. He shot nearly 50% from the field including 11 trips to the line. We have CJ Miles to thank for so many visits as CJ decided that fouling Roy every time he got the ball was some kind of good defense. Why Wesley Matthews was not in to guard Roy was beyond me. In previous meetings between these two teams Matthews was tasked with guarding Brandon Roy and generally did a good job at it. Jerry Sloan’s aversion to playing rookies down the stretch undoubtedly contributed to Matthews riding the pine.

Miles and Korver were terrible though…there’s no denying that. They shot a combined 3 for 16 from the field but I give Korver a slight edge since his 2 made field goals were both 3 pointers and one was in the final minute to cut a 6 point lead to 3. Kover’s defense was also just a little better (and I do mean only a little) than Miles’ foul-first D. In the end, it was Williams who was tasked with guarding Roy and I can’t say enough about what a good job Williams did on the bigger Roy. It seems like DWill can be a stellar defender when he wants. Thankfully, one of those times was tonight.

However, Williams wasn’t much of a force shooting tonight. While he ended up with 12 assists (offset by 5 TOs) he shot only 4 for 15 from the field including a miss with only 4 seconds in the game which continues his shooting slump. This makes 7 of the last 8 games Williams has shot quite poorly. He did go 9 for 9 from the charity stripe which was definitely huge on the road.

The props of the game probably should go to Boozer but I will be straightforward in saying he definitely could have exerted himself better especially in rebounding. That sounds foolish considering he ended up with 23. Putting that into perspective, the next highest Jazzman (Williams) had only 7 boards…and he’s a guard. Missing 5 of his 9 free throws wasn’t as helpful as Boozer might have liked but his offensive rebound and putback as time expired were as clutch as they go. I even watched the replay to see if Boozer made his signature push-off move to grab the board and it looked clean.

I knew, once it got to overtime, that the Jazz would pull out the win. Portland’s first field goal in the 4^th came with only 5 minutes left in the quarter and converted only 4 of 27 attempts in the 4^th and overtime. By then, the Jazz were rolling to their 7^th win in a row on the road.