Al Jefferson summed it up best:

"We dug ourselves in a deep hole. We can’t do that no matter who’s on the floor."

-Via Salt Lake Tribune

As much as we try to remain optimistic, sometimes we have to be realistic. As Clark mentioned in The DB this morning, we could really see this team fall back down to Earth during this month. If this team has any hope of making the playoffs, as is their stated goal, they're going to have to get back to the defense that they played during their streak in January. In addition, these young guys are going to have to step up and play well on the road.

Complete review after the jump.

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When the Jazz made it clear they were going to keep Al and Millsap, and then when they brought in Tinsley and Josh Howard, this was the kind of game I dreaded. A game that vets got to stink up their minutes while the kids watched on the bench, "developing."

It wasn't 100% the case, I know. Hayward got 29 minutes. Favors and Kanter combined for 30, which seems to be about their average. But still.

We haven't had to suffer through games like this at all lately, and hopefully this was just a cameo, but for me it was hard to watch.

The gig overview

The Jazz, of course, have two featured soloists—two guys who are the headliners, two guys who will get 90% of the time on stage in front of the microphone. Millsap and Big Al. Millsap was fine. Not breathtaking. Not one of those moments you're in tears knowing you'll never hear this improv solo ever again. But fine. He delivered a good performance. Al was bad. He was a trumpeter whose lips got chapped, split open, and bleeding but kept taking the solos anyway. You get why he was bad (the ankle injury), you applaud him for giving the effort because he knows he's the headliner (and probably because he knows he was missed against the Raptors)—but that doesn't mean the music was good, because it wasn't. Missed weazies over three defenders. Defensive rotations slower than stew thickened with oatmeal. It was vintage early 2010 bad Al.

As for the rest: Hayward took his role as the drummer and played great. We all would have loved some more great licks from him, maybe a drum solo or two, but you couldn't have found anyone doing the background stuff better. Devin was kind of invisible on his upright bass. Which isn't always bad. It was just walking bass lines, but sometimes that's enough. Raja did fine on the piano—even a couple of nice shots that made us momentarily wonder if he was the best of the three (he wasn't—but he had some really nice moments).

The backup crew was tough. Electric Earl was okay. Howard wanted all solos (shots) and murdered them. His background stuff was equally nasty—missing the hits, out of tune, sometimes playing the wrong part. And that's why it was so perplexing that the kids didn't get much of a chance. No Alec Burks. No Kanter in the first half. It's one thing when the vets have it going well, but another thing entirely when they don't.

More after the jump:

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Last night's heartbreaker elicited more "circus shot" exclamations from Bolerjack and more "How the hell did that go in?" responses from me, than any game in recent memory. Millsap's over the shoulder bank, Harris' running three pointer and one, and of course, Calderon's hail mary from nearly half court. Overall? Aside from the sting of defeat, what a fun and exciting game to watch.

Read the rest of the recap after the jump.

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Toronto Raptors 111 – Utah Jazz 106

The Utah Jazz led in the first quarter by a lot, and finished it up 32-23. That’s being up by +9 points. After two over-times (where the Jazz only managed to score 6 in the last one), the tired Toronto Raptors walked off the ESA court as victors. And they played OT w/o Andrea Bargnani who got re-injured. The Jazz played without Al Jefferson, and he’s the only guy whose trade value went up by being injured, in the history of the game. Final tally on the rebounds: Utah 48, Toronto 42. Like I said, the Raps are big inside, and we missed a lot of shots. They had 10 blocks, twice as many as our team.

Utah had a ludicrous +17 FTA advantage, and still lost the game. The Jazz left 12 freebies out there tonight. Jazz missed one in Overtime, and missed four in Double Overtime. We lost the game by five points. So, yeah, not so hot. Aaron Gray had a better night on offense than Gordon Hayward. Glad Alec Burks only played 5 minutes back when we couldn’t guard their pick and roll.

I’m disgusted at this loss. We earned it though. Furthermore, lots of credit to the Toronto Raptors. When they were down big in the 1st quarter they could have said "woe is me" and packed it in. They did not. With all the disadvantages going against them early they came together as a team and won the game. Bravo Toronto, I knew you would fight hard; and you did. More than the Jazz earned this loss, the Toronto Raptors earned this win. Maybe some Jazz fans can give them some credit for it too? Anyway, more coverage to come – including the Jazz Qunitet and the long Game recap – all in one place, SLCDUNK.

Utah Jazz 108 – Minnesota Timberwolves 98

To be honest, never ever in my life have I been happy to win a home game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Perhaps part of this feeling is based upon the perceived hype that surrounds the T-Wolves, who are filled with so many high lotto picks: Derrick Williams (#2 pick in 2011); Michael Beasley (#2 pick in 2008); Darko Milicic (#2 pick in 2003); Wesley Johnson (#4 pick in 2010); Kevin Love (#5 pick in 2008); Ricky Rubio (#5 pick in 2009); Luke Ridnour (#13 pick in 2003); Anthony Randolph (#14 pick in 2008). That’s eight lotto picks on their team, six of which are Top 5 picks. It fair to say that the Jazz aren’t stocked up like that, we only have Derrick Favors (#3 in 2010); Enes Kanter (#3 in 2011); Devin Harris (#5 in 2004); Gordon Hayward (#9, 2010); and Alec Burks (#12 in 2011). Still, this was a fun game to watch if you came to see the refs blow the whistles. There were 38 fouls called, and the teams went to the line 50 times. It was that kind of game again, guys.

Gentle ribbing aside, the T-Wolves are a more substance team in my mind that the Los Angeles Clippers anyday. For one thing, the T-Wolves actually have a great coach; Rick Adelman. And for another, they have a real quality depth (that was for our sakes, mostly injured for last night). The Wolves were still in it, without J.J. Barea, Michael Beasley, Brad Miller, Martell Webster, or Malcolm Lee. That is really impressive. Yes, we won without Josh Howard, but at this stage, Beasley is way better than him.

Ricky Rubio was his usual, amazing, self. He nailed all of his free throws, finished with a 5.5 to 1 assist to turn over ratio, nailed a three, made life easier for his less talented team mates – and also dropped in 17 points. It wasn’t the most efficient shooting night for him, but if you told me that Rubio would be a guy who can score 17 points at the NBA level on the second night of a back to back as a rookie, I would have taken the ‘against’. I have no concerns what so ever that he’ll be the best point guard in the league for the majority of his career. Rubio spreads the sugar around, as 7 guys on the Wolves scored in double digits. Kevin Love did not have a great shooting game. He finished the game with 15 points and 8 rebounds – which is pretty good. It’s not what we’ve come to expect from him though. He only had three offensive rebounds, 0 assists, 0 steals, 0 blocks, and shot 5 for 21. That’s worse than 25 fg%. He went 1/7 from three as well. Jerry Sloan would have benched him. Thank God, Jerry Sloan isn’t their coach though. When your All-Star scores 15 points on 21 shots (0.71 points per shot) it’s going to be hard to get the road win on the second night of a back to back. T-Wolves where still there, but the Jazz pulled it out.

The Jazz were -4 points in the paint on this night, yet still won. A large portion of the thanks has to go to the Jazz slashers who forced the action a bit and got to the line. (19 FGA by guys not named Paul Millsap, Al Jefferson, Derrick Favors, or Enes Kanter) Big Al had another double double (18/12), but added three sweet dimes. Paul Millsap had four assists. Gordon Hayward? He had six. Those three guys (all non PGs) had more combined assists than Ricky Rubio. The TWolves only had 6 non-Rubio assists. The Jazz? Outside of our starting forwards still had 12. The Jazz and Wolves both passed the ball really well, but I think the Jazz capitalized on the passes a little bit better. Utah had a higher fg% and more assists. The Jazz also enjoyed a 17 to 6 lead in fast break points.

Before this game I was worried about Rubio and Love; but after tonight the rest of the league should pay a little more attention to Earl Watson and Paul Millsap. Hey, I had to say one homer thing at least . . .

More coverage to come – all in one place, SLCDUNK.

Canis Hoopus

Timberwolves vs Jazz boxscore

Timberwolves vs Jazz recap

Timberwolves vs Jazz coverage

Edit: I added links to YouTube vids for the major music references. Go and enjoy.

I'm going to try a little something different. Between Amar's quickie recaps within 30 minutes of game end and the later Jazz Quartets, these longer reviews need something more to make them relevant, I think. So I'm experimenting with form and depth a bit. We'll se how it goes. And yes: I'm going to keep going with with music motifs and see where they go.

Overview of the Gig

It was a bit of a schizophrenic performance. What else do you call it when the headliners begin with some elevator music, the second-stringers start riffing off Beethoven's 5th via Bass Trombone and Electric Guitar, CJ finds his inner Johnny Hodges, and it all ends as Devin trips on the cables—and the microphone falls off the stage right before one last jam could save it all.

No, it wasn't the best game of the year (that, to me, was Sunday's win in Denver), nor the most fun (Clippers). But it was without question the best Game Thread-Twitter-Watch with a bunch of buds experience of the year. Seriously, we got everything:

• We could turn some of our guys into punching bags
• We got to say "Thank Zeus he's on our team"
• We got to flip out over idiot refs
• We got to laugh at the other team's star
• We got to scream at the TV for our guys to show just a smidge of passion
• We got to high five each other when our guys got angry and feisty
• We got to jump up and down over huge, power dunks that built our team's momentum
• We got to bang our heads against the wall over the "clutch" moments in the last few seconds
• We got to say, over and over, "I'm going to be so pissed if we lose"
• We got to shrug and say, "I wish we had won, but that they had fight was enough for me"

I could go on. Really, as far as giving us the full fan experience, this game pretty much gave us everything. So let's now look back at the different quarters. Or, in Jazz quartet playing at the club lingo, the four sets:

The rest after the jump.

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I watched this game, as we all did, in real time and let my emotions rise and fall with each success and perceived injustice. For this game I had to leave the laptop aside, stand up, approach my TV, and yell. We're all fans at heart, and it is games like this which help reminds us why we are fans in the first place. Our Utah Jazz, the team that was supposed to be little more than a speed bump for the best teams in the conference, were tied with the World Champion Dallas Mavericks at 87 all, with less than three minutes to play in the game. A game where we were without our third leading scorer on the team (Josh Howard) due to injury; a game where our future centerpiece was ejected after only 10 minutes of action (Derrick Favors); a game where the other team shot the ball at a 52.1 fg% rate; a game where our starting point guard (Devin Harris) goes 0-7; a game where we let Shawn Marion and Rodigue Beaubois drop nearly 40 points on you; and a game where we still could have won . . .

. . . a game I just re-watched. You do not want to put too much on any one single regular season game; however, this game once again re-upped me to be a Jazz fan for life. I'm not happy that the Mavericks defeated us, on our own home court; however, the Jazz lost this game in a better fashion that we have in some of our previous wins. What does that mean? It means that tonight the Jazz played with fire, with passion, with confidence, and a never say die attitude. This team played hard, and in response, our fans cheered hard in return. The Jazz were down 12 to the team that won the title a few months ago. They could have collapsed like they did on national TV against the Lakers weeks ago. They did not. This Jazz team, this speed bump of a team, fought tooth and nail and despite all the problems - they were still close enough to knock out the defending champs. On national TV. Without our third best scorer. And while shooting only 38.8 fg% from the field.

I am super proud of our team. You never want to lose a game. But if this game had 'injury time' like soccer does, you just knew that we would have won it. The Jazz, and the Jazz fans, took everything the Mavs could dish out but the Jazz were never knocked out. What gave the game to Dallas wasn't them just being, inherently, better. They weren't. The Jazz defense held Dirk Nowitzki to 5/12 shooting (12 points); harassed Jason Kidd into 6 turn overs; and held onto the ball well enough so they only got 4 steals in the entire game (the Jazz had 11). Dallas has a very potent three point attack, and against the Jazz they went 5/20 from deep. The Mavs weren't a better team tonight, and they're not a better team if you look at the rankings. They just scored 3 more points than us, and we didn't get a chance to finish our final possession.

The Jazz "gave this game away" according to some. There were defensive breakdowns that a group of Hall of Famers picked apart when we had rookies in the game. Perhaps we're expecting too much of our team - they can't win every game. Perhaps we're expecting too much from our players as well; obviously, rookie Alec Burks isn't going to have the proprioceptive attention that Rajon Rondo has; or that Gordon Hayward can defend guys like Shawn Marion or Lamar Odom in the paint as well as Andrei Kirilenko is capable of. Lastly, perhaps we're expecting too much from our head coach? It's unreasonable to expect our team to be perfect over the course of a season. It's unreasonable to expect our players to be perfect from the start as well.

It's specifically unreasonable to expect our coach to be perfect too - this was his 42nd game as a head coach. Ever. That's only a game over a half a season. Tyrone Corbin, according to some people on twitter, is the reason why we lost tonight's game, and also why we lost the most recent game against the Los Angeles Lakers. I guess for some people we expect Ty to be perfect. While allowing for the players to make mistakes here or there. Sure, I would have wanted a time out against the Lakers in overtime for the last shot. And sure, I would have wanted to see him stick with the hot, pass-first, hand in Earl Watson to end this game. But we don't put the blame on the loss on Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap scoring a cumulative 14 for 34. Millsap and Jefferson started off their partnership very poorly, but now they are definitely in synch with one another. I think we need to be similarly patient with Ty Corbin before we unilaterally start blaming him for losing the game.

I love how when we were down we fought back. Earl Watson, Raja Bell, and other vets did not give up. And our younger players matched their energy and active defense led to fast break points. The Jazz were in this game, despite all the disadvantages; and we almost still beat the championship winning Dallas Mavericks.

And it's the fiery play of our team that has made me very proud of our players and coaches. More in-depth coverage of this game continues tomorrow: a longer recap; a new Jazz Quartet; and another downbeat coming your way.

Utah Jazz 108 – Los Angeles Clipper 79

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

More critically, though, the Utah Jazz took care of business at home, and put to bed a tired team that is in the dreadful situation of being bereft of bench depth due to injuries, and in the middle game of 3 games in 3 nights. We’ve been on the opposite side of these games before, even in the Stockton to Malone years. It was nice, for once, to see our bench guys going out there having fun. The big showdown between Blake Griffin and Paul Millsap finished in a one-sided, clear, decision in favor of Paul. He had 20 points off of a very hyper efficient 7/11 shooting. Blake had a number of nice dunks, but did most of his damage from outside of the paint – though he was baited into taking more of that shot than he perhaps should have tonight. Blake finished with 10 points off of 12 shots.

While it was only natural to hype of the match-up between these two guys; however, this wasn’t a one on one game. This was a match up between two hopeful Western Conference playoff teams. The Jazz put the clamps down, as the Clippers shot only 36.5 fg% -- I guess their better defense beat out the Clippers stunning offense. Of course, one needs to recognize that the Clippers were down some pretty amazing players. That said, we know what that’s like as well. No team is going to go easy on you when you are hurting. For once it was nice to see the Jazz not ‘go easy’ on someone.

By the way . . . Jeremy Evans is out of this world. It’s the only explanation which satisfies why he’s so disdainful of our Earth’s law of gravity.

More coverage to come – including really nerdy stats (that included who is consistently putting in work in the game threads) – all in one place, SLCDUNK.

Also please be gracious and respectful if you make the trip to the Clippers' blogs. They are good people and good fans.

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