Upper Bowl Jazz Fan

Jazz fall to Suns in the last game of the season – 4/14/10

// April 17th, 2010 // Uncategorized

I’ve put off writing this post because I was so frustrated at how the Jazz played in this game.  Carlos Boozer missed the game due to a strained oblique muscle in his rib cage.  Andrei Kirilenko missed it as well due to an ongoing strain in his calf.  Mehmet Okur was questionable (but ultimately played) for the game due to a sprained Achilles Tendon.  Needless to say, there was a lot working against the Jazz for this game.

I wasn’t terribly optimistic coming in to this game w/ all of the injuries the Jazz had suffered.  But, I hoped that, since it was the last game of the season and a loss would push the Jazz all the way down to 5th, the Jazz would pull together for an amazing home victory, snag the 3rd seed and enter the playoffs on a huge high.

Man, I was really off there.  The Jazz couldn’t have looked more disorganized and unfit to go to the playoffs as a division winner.

The game started reasonably well with Memo being on fire for the 1st quarter and part of the 2nd.  In that time, he tallied up 20 quick points.  His glory was short lived as he finished with 21 points and was virtually invisible for the rest of the game.

None of the other starters shot over 50% from the field.  Millsap: 3 for 11; Miles: 6 for 14; Williams: 5 of 17; Matthews: 2 for 8.

Everyone had an off game.  In any give game, if a player or two has an off game, the team can usually prevail but not when every player couldn’t buy a bucket.

Time after time the Jazz would drive into the lane and either get blocked or turn the ball over.  The Jazz committed 19 turnovers and were blocked 10 times by Phoenix.  This coming from a team that is barely committed to any defense and was missing one of their best defensive big men (Robin Lopez).

The Suns actually had a good reason to lose this game.  Losing meant that they would have been the 4 seed and played Denver in the 1st round.  They have matched up very well against Denver this year and would have still retained home court for that series.

Since the Suns won, they will play the #6 Portland, who the Suns have NOT matched up well against.  You really would think that if the Jazz had found some heart for this game that they could have come out and beaten a team they have played very well against over the past few years.

The crowd at the game couldn’t have been more upset with what they felt like was bad officiating.  Through one entire timeout the crowd booed at the refs.  In my years of having season tickets, I have never seen that…ever.

Matthews was particularly bad racking up 6 turnovers and only 7 points.  DWill had 5 turnovers and only 6 assists.  The Jazz, as a team, had only 17 assists when their season average is a league-leading 26.

As a result, the Jazz start the playoffs on the road against the Denver Nuggets.  The Jazz played quite poorly against the Nuggets this year losing 3 of the 4 games.  One of the losses included a Nuggets team without Carmelo Anthony AND Chauncey Billups.  The only plus for the Jazz is that the Nuggets have not played well over the past month or two and Kenyon Martin is still not at full strength.

However, it will take a lot more heart to win against the Nuggets in a 7 game series than the Jazz demonstrated in a must-have game against this Phoenix Suns team.