Jazz blow out the Wizards at home.

Jazz crush the Wizards…like it wasn’t even close – 3/15/10

// March 17th, 2010 // Game Summary

This game lasted for 1 quarter. Then during the 2nd the Jazz blew it open to an 11 point lead at halftime. During the 3rd quarter the lead increased to 20+ points and flirted with 30+ points until the 3rd strings came in.

This was a welcome game after playing 4 games in 6 days especially after the physical game against OKC. Okur returned to the lineup while AK sat out nursing his strained calf. He scored in double figures as did Gaines, Millsap, Boozer, Williams, Matthews, & Korver.

The Wizards have noticeably checked out this year. After losing Gilbert Arenas to a felony-related season long suspension and the trades of Jamison and Butler, they are done. Their drive for winning has gone out the door with it. They don’t have a lot of promising young players and will need to rely heavily on the upcoming draft and then free agency to become competitive again.

Some interesting things to note

Kyle Korver leads the NBA in 3PT percentage this season at 57%. 2nd place is Mike Miller from the Wizards at 50%. Korver has missed a lot of games so it stands to reason that his high percentage is caused by the fact that he has taken fewer 3 pointers (79) than every other player in the top-40 percentage leaders. However in the past month, Korvers 3PT percentage has only dropped by about 4% which is pretty incredible since he has been getting extended playing time in that stretch.

The Jazz missed 14 of their 35 free throws…at home. Has Jerry Sloan ever talked to the team about free throws? Do they have a free throw coach? If they don’t, it’s about freakin time they got one! Geez, there’s no reason we should be this bad.

Sundiata Gaines posted some career highs in minutes played and points (15). It was nice to finally get a chance to see him run the point for longer than 2 minutes. He shot the ball well: 6 of 7 from the field, 2 for 3 from downtown but only 1 of 3 from the foul line. He looked promising in his stints of extended minutes but still not enough to get a real feel for what he is like as a player. Sadly, Ronnie Price looks to be back from injury this week so we may not see much more of Gaines.

For the Fesenko lovers: I have heard a lot of people clamoring for more Fes to be getting more time. There are times that I feel the same way. In the Washington game, he played only 15 minutes and accrued 5 fouls. Over the season, he averages a foul every 5 minutes. Meaning if he was getting more than just scrub minutes, he’d be fouling out almost every game….after only about 20 minutes. I like Fes a lot but given his insane foul rate and his 42% FT percentage, he’s not really making the team any better when he’s on the floor. Just some thoughts.