Indiana Pacers @ Utah Jazz - Game Thread

This just in. Everyone at Hardwood Paroxysm is a closet Jazz fan. It couldn't be more obvious. If you've seen American Beauty, you know what I'm talking about. Matt will be flying out to the SLC any day now to plant a fat one on Jerry Sloan. I think Utah's in Matt's neck of the woods soon though :)

Anyway, they've got Danny Granger scoring 50 tonight against the Jazz. The fact that his career high is 42 and that he's never scored more than 19 against the Jazz is irrelevant.

My bet is that Granger goes for 27 but has a terrible shooting night, < 40%. Millsap and AK shut him down for the most part.

The Jazz are beneficiaries again of playing at home against a team finishing up a road trip on a back-to-back night. Remember this good streak come April because you're going to be cursing the schedulers when we finish out playing 5 games in 6 nights.

C.J. will be out again tonight and Price will get the start for the second game in a row. Price has been bottled up for a while losing playing time to Brevin Knight. He had been inconsistent at best while starting for Deron. He's played well the past couple of games and had a great game against Detroit. He held Iverson in check and played some solid O.

The Pacers have slipped after having a pretty solid start to the season. They've lost 3 of their last four and are finishing up a five-game western swing. The Jazz should be able to jump on them in the first quarter. If not, they'll follow plan B which is to wear out an already weary team and pull away in the latter part of the game.

This should be another shoot-fest ala the Golden State game. The Pacers are 21st in the league on D so their philosophy is to out-shoot you. Should give the Jazz a lot of fast break opportunities.

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