Dogs And Cats, Living Together, Mass Hysteria. Jazz Sweep Spurs, Win 105-98

by Basketball John on Jan 20, 2010 11:00 PM MST in Game Recaps Comment 8 comments

See Sloan? See? See what happens when you use a timeout to stop momentum? You get the turning point in the game. Check this,

There's no question that AK coming in was the difference between the Jazz winning and them giving up the lead. He was a force tonight and kept the Jazz momentum going. 26 & 8 from AK-47 tonight. After tonight, I don't care about his $17M he's making. I know he's not going to do that every night. But here's what everyone should realize about AK. We've all questioned whether or not everyone else on the team is giving their all. With AK, I have never, ever, questioned him. He takes some cringe-worthy shots, but you know he's out their busting his can every play.

And when everyone else looks shaken or frustrated, AK keeps playing. He never looks like he's going to be out of the game mentally. He's cut out of the same cloth of Stockton and Malone. Can't wait until he has his number retired with the Jazz.

What can you say about Boozer? He was phenomenal tonight and owned Timmy. Flat out owned him. Owned him to the tune of 31 & 15. Owned him by holding Duncan to 5-15 shooting for 13 points and stopping him from getting his twenty thousandth point. Boozer was clutch late by hitting a jumper and nailing free throws to keep the Jazz in the lead.

I can't believe I'm this close to taking Boozer back. I have to say though that he has done everything you would want him to. I haven't seen this nastiness from him in, well, ever. Tonight he was dunking on Blair and then staring him down. And you know what? It really looked like the Spurs feared him. He's putting people on their backs. He's stopped yelling AND-1 all the time. Maybe this could all be attributed to his contract year, but I'll take it. Really, I can't think of anything about Boozer right now that I don't like. Could he actually be... GULP... a leader? I've been waiting for him to slip up after so many blunders the past year, but he hasn't. I'm not sure what else you could be asking of him.

Don't blame me now if he gets injured.

Bizarro, right? Jerry calling a timely TO is just the start of it.

The Jazz raced out to a 19-5 lead to start the game. In San Antonio. They then proceed to give up 25 unanswered points. Really? And we still won? Has anyone double-checked the box score and added up the points?

Instead of crumbling, they slowly got back into the game. They were down 43-30 with a little over 5 minutes to go in the game. Despite bone-headed plays at the end of the half by Boozer (throwing a football pass the length of the court out of bounds) and CJ (fouling Manu with 1.3 on the clock), the Jazz were only down 5, 45-50 at the half.

The bizarro continued into the third quarter where the Jazz didn't fold. They continued a strong march and overtook the Spurs on a pair of Deron Williams free throws to take a 62-60 lead. They never trailed after that.

Lot's more bizarro coming. The Spurs had no less than 55 missed dunks. They even pulled off the rare triple-miss dunk where the initial dunk missed, the follow-up dunk missed, and the as the third person was about to put it down, they were called for offensive interference. Blair missed a couple including one where he got swatted by The Sixth Man (thanks clark). Hey look, Vitale was calling the game in that movie too. Weird.

The Spurs were having passes go between their legs, losing balls out of bounds, and all manner of turnovers. A lot of their 16 TOs were unforced. Very un-Spurs like.

Perhaps the most bizarre of all was that the Spurs were not getting the foul calls that they normally do. They didn't get bailed out and the Jazz got to play them straight up. There were no bogus calls. Millsap even got a foul call. Inconceivable. He wasn't even fouled on the play. What is going on?

Oh, and did I mention that the Jazz swept the season series from the Spurs? After losing 20 in a row in SA, we've now won 2 straight? What is that all about?

This was not your typical Jazz team. They fought back, didn't collapse, and were clutch late. ON THE FREAKING ROAD! This game is probably #2 on the year for me next to the Gaines game.

Tell me the world isn't ending next week.

Deron Williams

DWill was visibly frustrated as he got called for fouls 2 and 3. He made a bee-line for the bench as soon as he got whistled. He's very frustrated right now overall. He's not playing mad. He's giving teammates frustrated looks and doesn't look to be leading things right now. I hope he makes the All-star game for nothing else other than he'll relax and start playing again. It seems like he thinks everyone is against him.

He didn't shoot well going just 3-10 from the field. He still ended up with 18 points by getting to the line 12 times. That many trips to the line usually means a lot more points for him but not necessarily a win.

He also had 10 assists and ZERO TOs. That's a good thing. In fact, the Jazz are now 7-1 when he has at least 10 assists and 0 turnovers.

Keep the beard going.

CJ Miles

You're killing me. You take some bad shots, make some bad fouls. Then you go and make three pretty assists like that late in the game. I need some consistency.

Paul Millsap

Solid game from Millsap again. Great shooting percentage with 5-7 on the night for 13 points. He had just 3 rebounds but had two huge blocks.

So a weird season gets weirder. One day we're up, the next we're down. I'll echo the comment where we should hope that the Jazz don't ever win 5 in a row so that Deron's beard gets all Grizzly Adams. I could live with 4-1 spurts over and over for the rest of the season.

You'll have a couple days to relish in this series sweep until the Nets come to the ESA on Saturday.

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We should make a move for Corey Magette

Get rid of CJ, Okur, and whoever else is playing bad. Magette is a beast, and the Jazz need someone like that.

The Orioles Suck!
Kill Korver!

by bucimislover on Jan 20, 2010 11:19 PM MST reply actions 0 recs

It's hard to say who had the best game tonight.

Boozer, AK and Millsap were all amazing.

Boozer- what can you say? He’s played well for most of the season, but tonight was even another gear. Offensively he is attacking the glass. Fantastic offensive game although you can’t give him too much credit for Duncan’s poor offense, because Okur and Millsap did most of the guarding against Timmay. But Boozer has been fantastic. If he played like this all the time, then that would be good. Still apprehensive about resigning him, but man, he is ballin.’

Millsap- Just an incredibly efficient night on offense. The nice thing is that he showed us his whole arsenal. He hit 15 foot jumpers, and fadeaway baseline jumpers and drove to the basket scoring with both hands. His blocks were huge also and led to fastbreak points. Most importantly, he challenges shots at the rim and that changes opponents mindset sometimes.

AK- My game ball goes to AK though. Just because his game was so much more than he usually gives. He played almost flawlessly. I can’t think of a stupid play. I could say the same for Boozer if it wasn’t for the horrible long pass at the end of the first half. Ak dunked, played passing lanes, challenged shots and hit 20 footers in rhythm. Just unbelievable. His is the performance you need in order to beat good teams on the road.

Fantastic game.

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

by clarkpojo on Jan 20, 2010 11:37 PM MST reply actions 0 recs

This game...

Was freakin incredible. I sent a text around the 5 minute mark of the first quarter to my friend floored because the Jazz had a 14 point lead. Almost as soon as i hit the send button it looked like the wheels were all falling off the bus……

And somehow the jazz pulled it together. Freakin amazing….

I almost don’t want to go out and try to trade anyone now. You have to believe that Okur will somehow go back to his normal routine in the second half of the season. Boozer i hope and pray will continue to stay in this zone.

If we can use the 6.5 mil buffer we got for the maynor/harpring trade to turn Cj Miles into some miracle like brandon roy. I’d be ok with that. If not. oh well

For the Love of the Game

by ForTheLove on Jan 20, 2010 11:59 PM MST reply actions 0 recs

I learned today that you can't package the exception with a player.

So the Jazz could acquire a $6.5 million or lower player for either free, picks or cash.

But it will be interesting to see if the Jazz use it to add a veteran presence, or a backup big or point guard.

Interesting month ahead.

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

by clarkpojo on Jan 21, 2010 12:13 AM MST up reply actions 0 recs

Of all the days that I had to do work and couldn't watch League Pass...

We do this!
I’ll watch the replay tomorrow.

Oh, great title, BBJ. Yes, it’s true. This man has no…

Possibly the southernmost Jazz fan in the world!

by TazzJazzFan on Jan 21, 2010 3:37 AM MST reply actions 0 recs

Greatest line of movie cinema history.

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

by clarkpojo on Jan 21, 2010 8:20 AM MST up reply actions 0 recs

totally agree re dwill

listening to the the post-game after yatta hit the shot, i thought to myself this is the first time in months and months that i’ve heard dwill sounding happy. as a rule of thumb he usually sounds mildly annoyed, and lately all we get from him is frustration. his state of mind has everything to do with how we play.

frustrated deron playing—>loss
mad deron playing—> win

he lets stuff like officiating take him out of games, and because of everything he does we forget that he’s actually still a young kid. when we played denver i heard george karl say that the difference between melo in the past and melo now is that he’s learned not to let bad calls get to him anymore. deron needs to get to that place…

…and that mentality or maturity is something to appreciate about AK and in my opinion has everything to do with what you said about being able to give his all and being in the game mentally all the time. once he got to a place where he could accept and embrace his role on the team instead of looking to be the main man, he could focus solely on playing.

by moni on Jan 21, 2010 5:15 AM MST reply actions 0 recs

Glimer team......... Maybe

One can hope the play we saw last night will be repeated many more times the rest of the season.

Like the rest of us, when the Spurs had their little “RUN”, I was very tempted to turn the channel to something like the daily soap opera roundup! You know, give myself a good reason to gouge out my eyes.

But it was not to be!

The JazzMen kept their cool, and played one hella game and worked past or through the challenges the game handed them.

Boozer can stay as long as he desires if he continues to play like he has this season. Seems that the guy we thought we hired 5 years ago has finally showed up to play ball. Maybe Malone gave him a call, maybe he is finally seeing what the rest of the world sees as his potential future and arriving there will not be by moving around the league 19 times!

I’m not sure how Deron, or anybody in his position, handles being so good yet seemingly able to fail at not achieving a mile post. But reality is most NBA players will never hit that AS game and associated fame. Though tough and easy to say from the outside, he does have to just get past it. Playing very well and on a very winning team will get him the press and national adoration he deserves. But that process is going to take some time.

AK, oh t’s been fun watching this young man grow and get nothing but better and better! He was frightening last night! I would never desire to be playing with him on another team against us.

Reviewing a copy of one of the most popular coach comments we hear all the time.

You have just got to play one game at a time. Win each one that you can. At the end of the year the stats will be there. At the end of a career, well Stockton’s show up well. Today’s win is the only win that matters today!

Good job last night, now repeat that performance.