The Downbeat - 5 March 2010 - #179 - The Magic 8 Ball Edition
by Basketball John on Mar 5, 2010 9:45 AM MST
in The Downbeat
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The playoff teams in the west are pretty much set right now. You have LA, Dallas, Denver, Utah, Pheonix, OKC, SA, and Portland.
While a lot can still happen, Memphis, New Orleans, and Houston are at least 4 games out with just over 20 games left to play. That's a big climb for each of those teams. And if you look at their point differential, they all have negative values while all of the playoff teams have at least a +3.
So what's left is just playoff positioning. Obviously the Jazz, and other teams, want to avoid the Lakers until they get to the WCF. So that means playing as either the 2, 3, 6, or 7 seeds. We know what happens when you're the eighth seed. Obviously the 2 or 3 seed is where the Jazz want to be given that you have home-court and also avoid the Lakers in the second round.
So what kind of finish do the Jazz need to get one of those spots? If they're going to overtake a team, it will be Denver. Dallas' schedule is relatively easy for the rest of the season.
Denver on the other hand, had a tough road trip to finish out the month of March. They're @ NY, Boston, Orlando, Toronto, and Dallas. The problem is that they've shown they can beat pretty much any team in the league. But if they're going to trip, that's when it will be.
The Jazz on the other hand are @ Toronto, Indiana, and Washington before returning home to play the Knicks and Warriors. This could be when we see the Jazz pass the Nuggets.
Phoenix will play a big part in our playoff destiny. They host the Nuggets on April 13th and then fly out to Utah the next day for the last game of the season. I'm guessing there's going to still be something on the line with that one.
The only downside to being the 2 or 3 seed is that you have to play SA, OKC, or Portland. Those teams scare me.
I know Jerry is rolling over in his grave when the Jazz start shooting threes, but maybe he should be more open to it. The Jazz are 15-3 when they make at least 7 three pointers a game. When they're shooting the three well, they're playing well. They're shooting nearly 46% from the arc when that happens, so they're not just jacking up 30 a game. If they make 8 a game, they're 10-1.
When you just look at attempts, they're 20-9 when they take at least 15 three-pointers a game. So Sloan is right, as long as you're making them, that's fine.
Of course, having Memo being able to hit the three again is nice.
I'm sure someone keeps track of this, but I couldn't find anything on it. They have starting lineups, but does anyone keep track of the lineups used to close out the games?
It sure seems like the Jazz have used a different closing lineup each game of the season. It's mainly a rotation on the wing players, but outside of Deron, it could be anyone out there. I'd like to have someone pick Sloan's brain on the subject to see how he determines who's going to be on the floor in the closing minutes. If it match-ups? Whoever is hot? Who's playing D? Whatever formula he's using, it's working. Now if he could just work the same magic with starting lineups.
I still need to see Memo do what he did last night for at least 4 out of the next 6 or 7 games or so before I'm a believer again. But if he gets back on track, man, that would be huge.
Since I haven't talked about LOST for a bit, I'd like to see the Jazz marketing team do a big budget playoff commercial based on the final scene of Tuesday's episode. This really isn't too big of a spoiler, but just in case, here's my idea after the jump. Just click on comments if you want to still comment and yet bypass the final DB.
When MiB and the others are walking through the courtyard of carnage and out of the temple after the smoke monster laid waste to the others, it gave me chills, the bad kind. Just eerie. I would love to see bodies on the ground with opponents laying on the ground as they make their way out of the opponents building and waiting outside is Deron. Just a slow-motion walk while some old song is playing in the background. Awesome.
They can afford it after the money they saved on the Maynor and Brewer trades, right?
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Playoffs
No reason to be scared of the Spurs or Blazers. We swept them both and would probably lose a game, two at most against them. Parker is playing hurt, Ginobili hasn’t played very well against us, and the Spurs are not deep. Portland has no shot at winning in Utah with their injuries.
Unfortunately it’s the Thunder that we have to worry about but I think we take them in a series.
I wouldn't worry about Thunder either...
I think their best weapon Durant is vulnerable against AK. The ONLY team I would worry about in Western Conference are Lakers (ofcourse) and Denver (sadly).
by iLoveBooks100per on Mar 5, 2010 1:24 PM MST up reply actions
haha, "vulnerable against AK"
that made me think of Pokemon.
Durantula used SPIN MOVE on Kirilenkachu!
It’s not very effective…
Kirilenkachu used STEAL!
It’s super effective!
Durantula fainted!
Uh, do you think you could draw me like a ninja?
SLCDunk.com: Bringing you ninjas, The KOOFs and anti-jinxes since 2008.
... also, I'm apparently 6 years old.
Uh, do you think you could draw me like a ninja?
SLCDunk.com: Bringing you ninjas, The KOOFs and anti-jinxes since 2008.
Wow
This is pretty damn funny. Thanks
by murderousmalone on Mar 5, 2010 2:25 PM MST up reply actions
Agree on the Blazers - not scary
but I still the SA is scary. But maybe its because they have had the Jazz’s number for so long that I am wary.
I worry about the Spurs because they're not dead until they're dead.
Portland is the least of the three that I’m worried about, but they can turn it on. They’re still having a pretty solid season despite the injuries.
And OKC scares me because I think they’re naive enough to not know what’s going on. Honestly, what pressure do they have to win a playoff series? None. The Denver game aside, their D is very good as well and we don’t match up with them at all.
by Basketball John on Mar 5, 2010 3:14 PM MST up reply actions
Portland is much better now that Roy and Batum are healthy. There are no easy outs this year.
The more you try to erase me, the more that I appear.
Lineups
If you go to http://popcornmachine.net/, they have a Game Flow for each NBA game, showing who was in the game at any particular moment, along with their +/-. I don’t think there’s any aggregate for the season, but if you wanna do the homework, that will be a nice source.
Yeah, that site is great
But I haven’t found anything like 82 games does for 5-man units. There’s nothing for closing out games.
by Basketball John on Mar 5, 2010 3:12 PM MST up reply actions
Dallas schedule doesn't seem so easy
without Jason Terry
Terry won't be out very long
He played the rest of the game after breaking his orbital, and he might be back in as little as a week.
1. For the month of March, the Jazz schedule is open to have a good run to end the season on. Just too many road games, and the Timberwoves. Out of the 3 teams you mentioned the only team I am worried about is the Spurs. The season sweep of the Spurs means nothing to me. The Thunder and Blazers only have one go-to guy (Durant and Roy) and don’t scare me. The Jazz are in a good situation to at least lock up the 3 spot, imo. It will be interesting to see what Dallas does. Surely they will slow down from the trade. I just hope the Jazz end the season on a high note and learned from last season.
Either way addition by subtraction is not going to get us past LA. Getting rid of Brewer and Maynor does not finally get us over the hump to beat LA. Yes the 2,3 seed is pivotal to get us to the Western Conference Finals but to get us to the BIG GAME……
2. Live or die by the 3-ball. With the Jazz running the flex having guys hit 3’s gives us great floor spacing and is what makes the Jazz tough to beat. No floor spacing makes it tough to get the offense flowing.
4. Yes good to have Memo get a motivational booster game like that. Hopefully he keeps it up.
5. Not a LOST guy so… you kind of lost me. (No pun intended)
1. Those teams should not be issues for us unless we overlook them. SA is just not getting it together this year, time to mix it up and try again. Portland is too broken. OKC is in the same position Portland was a while back. They got good pieces for the future, they are good enough to get in the playoffs, but lack experience to get out of the first round. They could catch someone by surprise, but that’s all it would be… a surprise.
2. I think shooting a lot of threes on a regular basis will make it easier for our shooters to get out of slumps, rather than letting them linger for multiple games. I also agree that it opens up the paint and if we shoot more threes, we get better production out of our bigs too.
3. Magic 8 Ball
4. Did any of you catch that stat last night? Was it something like 4 made 3’s in the 4th quarter all season? That is crazy, we really need him to pick it up and then we could scare some people.
5. Never seen Lost
Follow me on twitter @JD23UT
Last night...
another awesome performance… this season has been very entertaining.
by iLoveBooks100per on Mar 5, 2010 1:27 PM MST reply actions
Playoffs
The ideal situation would be for LA to face Portland in the first round and Denver in the second round. Portland plays LA very tough and LA might be prime for a second round Denver upset if the Portland series last many games.
To me points 2 and 8 are combined, kinda
I don’t think Sloan is adverse to the team shooting 3’s, as long as they come in the flow of the offence and the player is shooting the ball well. He’s probably like the rest of us in that he gets frustrated when players force up 3’s out of offensive sync and when they are not shooting well. The Jazz offence is designed to offer shots to all 5 players on the floor, so when a shooter keeps throwing up bricks instead of working in the offence Coach will get frustrated, because it’s not the Jazz way.
As for the ever-changing closing lineup it’s a sign that Jerry trusts his players and the system; he’s confident that who he puts in will do the job that’s asked of them. This idea that Coach is doing strange things with his lineups is kinda like all the other ‘Slow’ fallacies (never playing rooks, not calling timeouts, all covered here very well by clarkpojo) and it’s one that he’s disproving on a nightly basis. Take last night, where some of you were calling for Fes to come on and cause carnage – on the second watch through of the game I realised that Jerry had the lineups right: while we were struggling against the pick and roll (lack of a shotblocker, we know this) at the other end they couldn’t counter the switching we were doing when running the 3-man flex/full flex. I think that Coach’s mindset right now is that he’s trying to make teams react to us, not reacting to the other team unless the mismatch is really bad – and even then he’ll often try and exploit the reverse mismatch down our end.
The other massive positive I took out of the second viewing was that even though PHX shot eleventy billion percent from the floor we didn’t get blown out; the gap stayed at around 10 points, and how many times this year we’ve come back and won in that situation?
I think we’re all so used to the ‘old’ Jazz who wouldn’t fight it out that we’re kind of being blinkered about this team: they fight it out all the way. Maybe we are the ones slipping back into old habits, not the team?
Possibly the southernmost Jazz fan in the world!
Twitter: @Texas
#2
Last I checked, Jerry’s not dead yet, so “rolling over in his grave” is not really possible.
the jazz need to go 16 -4 to reach what i said in a fanpost of 56-26
i think 56 wins would be one more than denver will get by the end of season. we will see.
I'm all about covering the spread and moneylines. I was building a house, I don't deserve this, deserves have nothing to do with it. Bang. "Unforgiven" I drink your milkshake. I drink it up! "There Will BE Blood"
by wolfmanshowlforever on Mar 7, 2010 6:42 AM MST up reply actions
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