Upper Bowl Jazz Fan

Deron Williams vs Russel Westbrook battle leads to Jazz loss to Thunder – 3/14/10

// March 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // Game Summary

This game was tough even before tipoff.  Okur and Ak sat out with injuries.  Boozer should have dominated in the paint against the Thunder.  He ended up with 18 points, 11 rebounds, and 5 assists.

On a normal night Boozer’s effort would have been great. This wasn’t a normal night.  Booze had the ability to go inside considering that his man was either Jeff Green (who’s smaller than Booze) or Nick Collison (who is much slower than Booze).  But he didn’t and just gave a normal effort.

CJ Miles needed to fill in and prove his worth.  Instead he showed up with 3 for 12 from the floor and only made 1 shot that was not a 3 pointer.  He had some good steals and, to be fair, had a tough matchup usually guarding Kevin Durant.  Nevertheless, Durant scored 5 more than his average and went to the FT line 13 times making every one of em.  We needed more out of CJ.

Wesley Matthews stepped up in a big way.  He made 9 of his 11 shots including 6 of 7 from deep.  He posted his career high of 29 points.  What’s more impressive is that OKC’s best defender, Thabo Sefalosha, was usually tasked w/ guarding Matthews.  Didn’t matter, the rookie was feeling it.

Deron Williams put the team on his back. Despite have a sore left shoulder and his ongoing wrist injury he played incredibly: 27 points, 14 assists (only 2 TOs), 57% FG, 91% FT.  He brought everything he had despite his injuries.  That’s what a leader does.

The Deron Williams vs Russell Westbrook duel was one of the best PG battles I’ve ever seen.  I realize that Deron Williams and Chris Paul will forever be compared because of their proximity in the 2005 draft at 3 and 4, respectively.  That proximity doesn’t really make them the same type of player (even though they are both PGs) and the CP3 vs DWill matchup has generally been won by DWill.

Westbrook is much more similar to Williams in size and style of play.  Generally, Westbrook isn’t a great shooter but no one would have believed you during this game.  He shot 75% from the field, socred 30 points, and dished 11 assists (with 5 TOs).

Both guards were playing ridiculously physical, taking hits, driving to the rim and trying to win it for their team.  It was quite the spectacle.  But, in all honesty, I fear the Thunder in the playoffs.  I hope we don’t have to face them.

Utah Jazz Slaughter the Bulls – 3/9/10

// March 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Game Summary

Slaughter?  The Bulls?…get it?!  The levels at which I’m not funny are just astonishing.  Oh…so about that Jazz game.  We won!  We could only be bothered to play defense for about 1 1/2 quarters…so that’s cool right?  I know that sounds petty but the Jazz really need to nitpick everything they do in order to be better and really be contenders.  The Bulls lack of defense was pretty understandable: they were without their center, Joakim Noah.  The Bulls rank 27th (out of 30) in the NBA in offense.  They have a pretty hard time scoring in general….not to mention being without Noah and Luol Deng (who left in the 3rd quarter w/ a calf sprain).  They still scored 108 against us.

I think the Jazz get a little excited when they can score at will and sort of turn into the Warriors or the Suns and just try and outscore the opponents in those situations.  That can be very dangerous because if the game becomes close, it’s hard to just turn on the button that reads “defense wins games” when it’s been off all game.

That being said, Williams played fantastic in a point guard show down with Derrick Rose.  Both point guards had double-doubles by halftime.  Williams finished 11 of 15 from the field (including 3 for 5 from 3) totalling 28 points, 17 assists, and only 1 turnover. That’s what I like to see out of Williams.  Rose was no slouch either shooting 53% from the field, 25 points and 13 assists (but 5 turnovers).  However, only can claim that they posterized the other.  Watch this:

CJ Miles was impressive and shooting the lights out (especially in the 4th): 9 of 12 FG, 6 of 7 from long range, 26 points, 2 steals and a block.  That’s what I’m talking about CJ!  Keep it up.  Go Jazz

Jazz lose inexplicably to the Clippers – 3/1/10

// March 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Game Summary

Deron Williams’ hot hand was apparently limited to the Rockets game as the Jazz fell to the Clippers 108-104.  Deron posted a poor performance from the floor going only 5 for 15.  From the line it was worse, a mere 2 for 5 including 2 misses with less than 30 seconds less that would have made it a 2-point game.  But, he missed them and the Jazz couldn’t put a victorious cap on their big run to close out the game.

The Clippers rank in the bottom third in overall FG and 3 point percentages but managed to shoot just under 50% from the field AND from 3 point.  They missed only 3 free throws out of 29 including some key free throws in the closing seconds to keep the game out of reach.

It seemed like the Jazz kept waiting for the Clippers to implode and beat themselves instead of taking the initiative and taking over the game.  Granted, the Clips tried just that with only a minute or two left in the game but it was too little too late as the Jazz could not take a lead.  The Jazz never lead during this game.  It’s as if they had no idea they were playing the Clippers.

After the loss to the Kings I questioned whether or not DWill was still dealing with some wrist problems but he game out blazing in the Rockets game which quelled some of those wrist questions.  However, it turns out I wasn’t too far off as he made some comments in the post-game about the state of his wrist.  He said it’s been almost 2 months since he hurt it and that it’s almost the same injury that Kyle Korver dealt with last year, an injury for which Korver needed surgery.  Williams also said that his only 2 options are missing a month to get over it, or play through it.

After hearing this, I am not terribly optimistic for the rest of the season.  If we have to rely on the rest of the Jazz players to do the scoring and crunch time plays instead of Deron Williams we could be in trouble.

Jazz crush the Rockets – 2/27/10

// March 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Game Summary

I guess Deron Williams read my letter to him (Kings recap).  Because he came out in this game like a man on  a mission.  He finished 13 of 17 from the floor including 4 for 4 from beyond the arc, 5 for 6 from the the line, 7 rebounds, and 13 assists…in only 32 minutes of play.  That’s pretty incredible.  I think DWill may have just not realized how really bad he had been playing lately since the Jazz had been doing so well.  But after a loss to an especially crappy team it seems like Deron decided to up his game.  Thank goodness.

What will be interesting to watch is if Williams keeps it up and continues his dominance.  Make no mistake, Deron Williams can dominate most players/teams if he really tries to.

Boozer had another good game (that’s becoming quite the theme) chipping in 18 points as well as Matthews and Millsap also having 18 points.  Wesley Matthews had been in his own mini-slump only shooting around 25% since the All Star Break.  he finished 7 of 9 from the floor.

The Jazz, very uncharacteristically, finshed with 14 made 3 pointers which is our season high.  Combined with shooting 14 of 25 from downtown it’s hard not to be happy at that number.  The once defense-first Rockets were nowhere to be found during the game tonight.  It helped that the Rockets were missing Shane Battier and Trevor Ariza but we were missing Andrei Kirilenko.  I feel like that’s a pretty fair trade right?