It's Not Lame, It's The Ten Days Of Christmas. On The 6th Day Of Christmas, The Utah Jazz Gave To Me...

by Basketball John on Dec 20, 2010 11:45 PM MST in Fun Stuff, Contests, & Humor

...First-round playoff win.

I debated about including this one for a bit. After all, should we celebrate a first-round victory when the ultimate goal is to win a championship? Given the way the Jazz closed out the season, it kind of felt anti-climactic at the time. There wasn't much difference between the 3-seed and the 5. To have to go on the road again to start the playoffs was not an improvement.

Of course, because you're reading this, you know I ultimately chose yes. There are a few reasons why the upset over the Nuggets was a top story of 2010:

The Nuggets are one of, if not the, biggest rival team for the Jazz. Denver beat the Jazz soundly during the regular season, 3 games to 1. As a result, the Jazz lost home-court advantage in the first round when the two teams ended up with identical 53-29 records. So to be able to take 4 of 6 from the Nuggets vindicated the regular season failure in a way.
It was a huge series win given that the Jazz were underdogs even before Memo went down with his Achilles injury in game 1. Memo's popping his Achilles is what I first wanted to do for one of the top ten stories of the year. It was, but it was part of something bigger, and that was the team's series win over the Nuggets.

Had Memo not gone down, the Jazz could have won a game or two in the next series against the Lakers but ultimately I think they still would have dropped that series regardless. That's why I wanted to focus on this one.
Carmelo Anthony:
"Fesenko? Fesenko? Don't get me wrong. He is a great player. He's playing with a lot of confidence, but … Fesenko?"

That was after game 4 and a 3-1 series lead for the Jazz. Fess made 4-7 from the line that night. Fess stepped in and played admirably for Memo. His play in games 3 and 4 helped get the series win.
The rise of Deron Williams. Deron was the best player in that series for the Jazz putting up 25.8 & 11 in those 6 games. He always seems to keep kicking things up a notch. His play in the playoffs appears to have spilled over into this year.

For as much as an All-star cane break out, we saw that with Deron Williams in the playoffs last season.

If that series win has even had the slightest impact on Melo's desire to get out of Denver and if the team gets blown up in the process, it makes it that much sweeter.

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Comments

it's weird, the perception of rivals

when i think of jazz rivals i think more traditionally of houston or more recently, the lickers just bc we’ve played them three years in a row in the post-season (and yes, i know, they don’t mutually see us as a rival).

apart from being in the same division, i wouldn’t think denver.

that we won the series w/o memo or AK, though, made this series win huge.

by moni on Dec 20, 2010 11:52 PM MST reply actions

I agree. I would not consider the Nuggets a rival of the Jazz. Like Moni said, I would choose another team like the Lakers, Mavericks, Spurs or some other team for that matter.

by Jeffrey Thompson on Dec 21, 2010 7:52 AM MST reply actions

i think that the blazers...

are even a bigger rival than the nuggets, especially with their interference nearly every off season. I’d like to add that to the list that does include the lakers and spurs. Nuggets are there, but they’re down the list a bit.

by JazzFan87 on Dec 21, 2010 8:10 AM MST reply actions

The Jazz are rivals to the Lakers

Like the Hornets are rivals to the Jazz

Hard to have a one-sided rivalry

by Clintonite33 on Dec 21, 2010 9:12 AM MST reply actions

That's what's kind of weird

Most Jazzfans would list the Lakers as the team they hate and want to beat most. But how many Lakers fans would list the Jazz the same? Probably pretty few, I’d say.

Just like I don’t even consider Houston a rival, but man those guys sure seem to think of the Jazz as Enemy number 1. When you get down to it, I don’t think a really strong rivalry has developed for the Jazz.

I got the crap beat out of me in Provo one time

by Yucca Man on Dec 21, 2010 10:13 AM MST up reply actions

The Jazz are a lot like BYU in this respect

EVERYONE wants to beat the snot out of em

by Clintonite33 on Dec 21, 2010 12:33 PM MST up reply actions

Boston.....Epic Rivalry

by EcERyda69 on Dec 21, 2010 10:50 AM MST reply actions

I'm surprised at the rivalry comments

I agree with what’s been said above. I think a rivalry has to be mutual and I don’t think any Lakers or Laker fans consider Utah a rivalry.

OKC is getting there especially as they’ve gotten better. Houston hasn’t been a rivalry for a few years now and I don’t think they will be again for a while. The Rockets fans hate the Jazz but I don’t think the players care as much, especially since almost none of the ones there were there when we played them in the playoffs.

San Antonio used to be a rivalry when we were in the same division. Outside of last year’s success against them, there hasn’t been much there either.

That leaves Portland and Denver for me. I think Nugget fans and Jazz fans hate each other pretty equally. I don’t think there’s much love lost between the teams either. The geographic proximity adds to it as well.

Portland is right there as well. With the off-season shenanigans and the fact that they have TDPR, it went up a notch. However, given their injuries, and overall team confusion right now, it might weaken things a bit. But you know the fans and players both go hard for those games.

A good question would be what constitutes a rivalry? I think both teams have to be even, the fans have to be into it, and there has to be recent history between the teams. That leaves Portland and Denver as the front-runners for me.

SLCDunk.com, The Utah Jazz on SBNation

by Basketball John on Dec 21, 2010 3:50 PM MST reply actions

agreed

I was surprised too. LA maybe but they beat us all the time. I think Denver since we’ve played them in the playoffs. And OKC and Portland for all the reasons you listed.
I know Easter conference teams don’t count but it seems like maybe Detroit and Cleveland before Lebron left. Always close games w/ former players etc. Maybe Chicago now that they have half our players.

by dianaallen on Dec 21, 2010 4:57 PM MST up reply actions