That's Charlotte of points that Boozer put up, isn't it?
Thankfully Boozer put on a uniform last night because he was the biggest reason the Jazz didn't drop their third in a row at home.
After crapping the second quarter with only 14 points, the Jazz were down 11 at the half, 52-42. It's probably no coincidence that Boozer only had 1 FGA in that second quarter. The Jazz only had 2 assists in that quarter and 0 from Deron. Just a putrid quarter of basketball from the Jazz.
When he finally got the ball in the third, he went on a tear, going 6-9 from the field and a total of 14 points. The Jazz also stepped it up on D holding the Bobcats to just 16 points and turned that halftime deficit into a a four-point lead heading into the fourth.
Why do you think Boozer opens his mouth so wide when he yells? He's hungry and the Jazz should keep feeding him the ball right now. Maybe we would have pulled out a win against Atlanta had he got more touches.
Charlotte hung around, even tying it up in the fourth, before the Jazz went on a 16-4 run to close it out. The hero behind that run was none other than Kyle Elliot Korver. He made three threes during that span and had the clinching three with just under two minutes to go in the game.
Basketball-reference.com has a team page that shows whether players have been playing above or below their season averages for the past 10 games. The bad news is that Korver's three point percentage is down over his past ten games. The good news is that it's only 57% compared to his season average of 60%. Holy crap. He doesn't have enough attempts to qualify officially for the league lead, but right now he's shooting almost 5% better than Mike Miller.
He's said that this is the healthiest he's been in a long time and it shows. If he keeps this up, the Jazz would be dumb to not try to bring him back. However, he's going to get a lot of offers I'm sure from other teams this offseason.
The play of the night though for me came from big Fess,
It's going to be hard to hold him down much longer. I'm eagerly waiting to see how he progresses. He's altering shots and becoming a presence inside.
I'm impressed with the way the Jazz kept in this game with their D. Their offense hasn't been the best lately but they're always given themselves a chance to win. Last night the Bobcats shot 53% from the field and had 71% from behind the arc. But the Jazz weren't giving up anything inside.
After the first quarter, those threes didn't fall for Charlotte. After shooting 5/7 in that first quarter, they only had 2/14 the rest of the way. They were also held to just 37.5% shooting after that first period. What kept them in the game was free throws, specifically, a lot of made free throws. I guess that's like saying the only reason the Jazz won the game was because they scored more points than the Bobcats because you can't discount either.
But when the guy with the most free throws is a flopping Gerald Wallace with 10, then that irks me a bit. Everyone in the NBA flops but after his no-show at the dunk contest and general apathy in the game itself, he dropped quit a bit in my book. Still a tremendous basketball player but as far as being respected, he falls into the same category as Manu for me now.
Other notes
- Tyrus Thomas had a good night with 20 points on 6-8 shooting. His most memorable moment though was when he checked into the game sans uniform sporting only his black under shirt.
- Bolerism of the night, "Boozer has had 3 20/20 games this season. He's looking at a 30/14 right now." I wonder how many 30/14's he's had? Looks like he's had three 30/14s with his latest being at GS this month.
- Deron had 20 & 12 on his best shooting night since the All-star break. Hopefully that continues
- CJ is taking his recent poor play pretty hard. Not sure how he's going to snap out of it. He did have some sweet passes last night.
- Rufus on Fire
- Salt City Hoops
- Cowhide Globe
- TUJB
- UBJF