Proving that this league is a lot about match-ups, the Knicks beat the Hawks for the third time this season. That's two or three losses we could have used to sweeten that Knicks pick.
If we lose out on a position in the draft, thank the Hawks. You can also thank Wilson Chandler for his last-second block of Josh Smith that would have given Atlanta the win.
We're still not in a bad position though.
Seems that most of you are pretty bullish about the rest of the season starting tonight with the Bulls. Chicago has struggled mightily since losing Joakim Noah to plantar fasciitis. They were a top-ten team defensively, but have given up 100+ points in 7 straight games. They've also lost the last four straight without Noah.
Their offense has been terrible this season so if their defense is going downhill, they don't have much going for them right now.
If the Jazz are to have a good road trip, they need to take care of the Bulls tonight.
The KOOF will be wreaking havoc on the D-League again as he was sent down to the Flash yesterday. This will be his second trip this season. He had 16 & 7 in the one game he played in the last time he was in Orem.
I have to admit, the KOOF confuses me. He's not going to get a lot of playing time right now with everyone in front of him. But when he is in, he hasn't impressed. He's only getting PT for maybe 1-2 minutes a game, tops, so it's probably pretty hard to get into any kind of rhythm. Maybe it's just a case of getting more minutes for him? Those aren't going to come this year though so D-League makes sense for now.
We have Hornacek for a shooting coach to work with AK, Korver a bit, and wherever else he's needed. He's done a great job.
However, can we get him to work with everyone on their free throws? The Jazz are tied for fourth in the league in free throw attempts with 1,679 yet they're 24th in the league in percentage at 73.8%. Even if they were to shoot just the league average of 75.8%, that's a 1/2 a point a game more.
Last year they shot 77% and the year before that was 76%. So who's having a down year? Of the regulars, everyone is shooting below their career averages other than Boozer and Millsap. Even Korver is shooting below 80% for the first time in his career. Memo is shooting about his average though.
If the Jazz were to go back to 77%, they'd be almost a point a game better. Maybe that's not much, but when you give up as many fouls shots as you do, you need to make up for it on the other end.
This is why Denver is going to be hard to beat this year in the playoffs. They have more than 350 attempts than the next team in the league. They're shooting 77.3% and have 200+ more made free throws than the next team.
Do you know why Boozer yells AND-1 so loud? That's because the Jazz lead the league in AND-1%. It's shocking then that Boozer doesn't lead the league. But as a team, the Jazz have the highest percentage of getting to the line after a bucket. If they would ever call a foul for Millsap, we could add 75 more points a game.