Recap - Houston Rockets @ Utah Jazz

by Basketball John on Mar 25, 2009 12:18 PM MDT in Game Recaps Comment 9 comments

That's a great feeling, isn't it?

While I think the Jazz would take the Rockets again in a 7-game series, I really don't want to see their ugly mugs again.

Destiny may override me on this one again. It just seems like they're on a collision course to meet up in the first round.

As much as I don't want to see them, it would be a fantastic series, wouldn't it? Artest is a worthy villain to replace the vitrol that McGrady received. I can never get enough of the Yao frustrated face. And the game threads with The Dream Shake would be epic.

The prospect of ousting Houston in the first round again and putting Rocket fans into a nosedive from which they could never pull up from has to appeal to the common Jazz fan.

Too bad Houston isn't in the Eastern Conference and we're meeting them year after year.

As for the game, both teams started out the game 2-456 from the floor. Houston had a better percentage from the arc in the first half, 43%, than they did overall, 35%.

The Jazz weren't much better. Because of their 41% putritude, the three pointers the Rockets made kept the game close.

After Houston made a run in the third to take the lead, the Jazz reponded with one of their own and never looked back. They controlled the fourth quarter by finally hitting a more Jazz-like 56% (9-16) and clamped down on D. Houston had their worst shooting quarter hitting on just 33% of their shots.

Their poor shooting came in large part to Mr. Artest. His 5-22 shooting (.227) was a feat to behold. I thought Ronnie B did a great job on him in addition to Crazy P missing some wide open jumpers. Anything that gives Yao less of a shot to make an impact is a plus.

Speaking of Yao, he was stuffed several times by Memo (4 blocks!) and once by Millsap, each more delicious than the first. He went 6-16 and 5 of those makes were face-up Js. He didn't have his normal low-post dominance. He missed all kinds of bunnies including airballing a one-footer. In addition, he only went to the line once. We're in your head Yao.

I have to give credit where credit is due. Though the sight of Steve Javie scares me, the officiating crew was good last night. There were a few missed calls on both sides, but they let the teams play all night and it lead to a highly-enjoyable and watchable game. The Jazz had only 17 fouls for the game. If you've been paying attention, you'll know that when the Jazz foul less than 21 times, they'll win almost 76% of the time.

The only concern of the night besides the FG% was getting out-rebounded by 10. I think 10 of those came on one possession by the Rockets where they missed 10 shots in a row and got an offensive rebound every time. Well, it was actually only 5 O-boards on that possession, but it felt like a lot more. I'm sure there could have been fouls called on both teams in that sequence, but the refs let them play.

Player Notes:

Ronnie B
Another great outing. He hasn't been shooting the J well lately, but he went 2-4 on his jumpers in this game and was the psychiatrist needed to counter the Crazy.

Deron Williams
Sub-par shooting night, but hit the dagger late (again) to put the game away with a little over a minute left. Also, what happened to his three-point touch? TDS stated that it had been down this year in a post and I rushed to basketball-reference to show that it was just because he was injured earlier. But nope. It's all but gone. Since the All-Star break, he is barely above 26%. Weird. I don't have an explanation for that one. I'll take the 11.6 assists a game in March though.

Carlos Boozer
Will he be 100% by the playoffs? I hope so.

Kyle Korver
If AK was the unsung hero of the first half of the season, then KK has been it for the second half. You can tell he's put a lot of work into his defense this year. He hasn't had his shot falling until recently, but he's stayed in the game for making hustle plays like he did last night when he chansed down a loose ball that went over the half-court line and unfortunately had his tap put the ball right in Scola's hands. He then got the foul for taking out Luis, but there wasn't any possession of the ball by Scola before that.

Memo
He didn't get to blow any smoke off of his fingers, but he plods along with 12 & 8.

Millsap
He's a hustler in every meaning of the word.

AK
He's had his minutes cut a little short, but it's because of KK's outstanding play more than anything AK is doing wrong.

2 1/2 games separate 2-7 in the West. The Jazz are 2 games back of SA for the 2 seed. Think that game @ SA isn't going to be the biggest of the season?

It's looking like we're going to be playing Houston, Denver, or NOLA in the first round if I had to guess right now and with the way the schedule shapes out over the last few weeks. I like our chances there.

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Comments

Nice recap and even better win.

Only one criticism: I think you greatly underestimated Ronnie Brewer’s impact on the game last night. He was hands down the best player for the Jazz. Artest wasn’t settling for jumpers as much as just not being able to get around Brewer. Thank goodness Brewer added some muscle this offseason, because he needed and used it last night. The other thing about his game on the offense is that he created for himself. On almost all of his buckets and plays where he was fouled, he created for himself. His aggressiveness and getting to the basket kept the Jazz in the bonus in the 3rd quarter and put a lot of pressure on the Rocket interior defenders.

We actually had a really successful night down low. It was just what I like to see. We shot about 10 straight shots in the paint in the 3rd and 4th quarters. It was fantastic to see and it showed that Yao can’t guard any of our bigs…not one of them. So if the Rockets can’t guard Deron Williams, or Ronnie Brewer, or our bigs, we are going to continue to match up nicely with them.

Now lets take care of bidness in Phoenix.

The more you try to erase me, the more that I appear.

by clarkpojo on Mar 25, 2009 1:10 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

Jumpshots

I felt like we settled for a lot of jumpshots. Great if you’re hitting them, death if you’re not.

I also felt like it was a bock party on both sides of the court.

We bleed True Blue.
www.truebluejazz.com

by CB Jack on Mar 25, 2009 1:26 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

I find that more than I'd like it . . .

guys like Boozer and Millsap would perfer to shoot jumpers than drive and go into the paint against bigger guys. I’ve seen Boozer do this frequently when guys like Yao are on him, and ‘Sap was doing the same when KG/Perkins was on him. In fact, in the last game Boozer only really drove when Scola was on him . . . ’Sap continues to go inside and not get calls, so I kind of understand his hesitancy in this regard. Boozer can go David West like and make a number of jumpers, but only when he’s in rhythm . . . right now he’s just not there.

by AllThatJazzBasketball on Mar 25, 2009 2:20 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

I didn't elaborate on Brewer as much as I should have

Artest was settling for a lot of jumpers, but a lot of them were wide-open looks. I don’t remember though if Ronnie was in or guarding him at the time. He was hands-down the x factor last night and has been for a lot of games.

SLCDunk.com, The Utah Jazz on SBNation

by Basketball John on Mar 25, 2009 2:55 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

nice recap!

btw, your comments have me working on my blog again. here’s a piece looking at the jazz’ road record vs. the top teams in the west . . . it’s not as cut and dry as the 0-8 looks right now:

http://allthatjazzbasketball.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-bad-are-jazz-on-road-really.html

by AllThatJazzBasketball on Mar 25, 2009 1:59 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

Great article!

I think the TNT games have really hurt the Jazz this year too. They rarely play on Thursdays, so they have to cram in more back to backs. Plus, there’s the no-home-games-on-Sunday problem as well. Even Fish said that the Jazz have the toughest schedule in the NBA (mainly for these reasons). It’s probably the reason they always tend to surprise people in the playoffs. Nobody ever sees the Jazz play outside of Utah, and their record is never quite representative of how good they are.

by chamont on Mar 25, 2009 4:34 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs