Hey, No Wednesday Night Game Happened- The Downbeat #942

Hey there was no Wednesday night game yesterday! Did the schedule makers forget we exist? The Jazz last played on Monday and won't play again until Saturday. The Jazz have one game in seven days with the three days off following Saturday night's game against the Cavs. (Welcome home C.J Miles)

Its kind of an unfortunate time for the Jazz to have a long break. Having won 4 out of their last 5 games, I hope the time off doesn't cool them off.

Without having games to write about, what kind of posts would you like to see at SLC Dunk this week? We feel like we have been having great discussions lately on the site and would love to keep that up even without frequent games.

We would like to thank you for all your support and contributions. We love the comments, we love the fan posts. We love our family of Jazz fans.

David Locke did an interview with Jazz GM, Dennis Lindsey a few days ago. Our Moni did one of her amazing transcripts.

I'd like to highlight a few interesting tidbits from the interview:

Lindsey on Al's defense

They’re there, but I would say it’s…defensive, we want to isolate it, and there’s so many parts that go into it, you know. There’s the coaching, the teaching, how connected is your five-man unit. So there’re certainly some things that we have to improve upon and Al has to improve upon, and those are being mentioned, you know, to him on a daily basis by Ty and the coaches.

I like that Dennis just doesn't flat out call out Al. I see nothing productive in a GM or coach doing that with players. I wonder if the things Al does need to improve upon are mentioned daily or if Dennis is exaggerating.

Lindsey on youth development and winning:

We’re trying to do a lot of different things here. We’re trying to win games and develop and you have to give Ty and Kevin [O'Connor], the organization, you know, before me a lot of credit that at some level, we’re doing both. Keeping our culture strong, and you know, there’s, you always, there’s a lot of things that can chip at the integrity of your culture, and certainly losing a bunch of games in a row is one of them, where it’s hard to keep the ship steady.

Many times playing choices are less clear and you’re doing that, you know, you know, not with hindsight. You know, you’re doing that in-game, and so I’ve been pleased, frankly, you know, and some with Ty’s choices, with both of our ability to win and still get Derrick the appropriate minutes to develop.

I love our conversations here and that we can all have different opinions. I hope we all feel respected even with differing opinions. Surly Mae had a lovely twitter rant after seeing this tweet:

Surly's rant got people excited and started a discussion.

Spencer Ryan Hall of Salt City Hoops said he thinks if fans can tell Ty what to do then Ty should be able to determine who and what is a fan. Spencer plans on writing a post on it so I won't expand on his thought too much. I didn't agree but at the moment couldn't really say why not.

Amar responded with exactly how I felt. Amar compared critiquing the Jazz to going to a movie or a play and reviewing the movie/play and actors. Sports are entertainment they always have been and always will be.

Fans have a right to share how they feel about the team they pour their hearts into every day. I feel we should feel comfortable sharing our thoughts whether they are construed as positively or negatively by other fans.

We are fans and not casual fans, we read and write on a site dedicated to the Jazz, we tweet, we are always talking about the Jazz. We are going to have strong emotions about the Jazz, if we didn't have strong emotions, if we didn't love the Jazz well we wouldn't be SLC Dunkers.

I don't think any fan should judge what a "true fan" is. It doesn't make sense that you can only be a fan if you agree with everything the coach does or you can only be a "true fan" if you go to all the games. You're not just a true fan if you look at advanced stats or write 7000 word posts on the team. There are many many ways to be a fan. There is as many ways to be a fan as there are fans.

So thank you for always being so respectful to me, the other writers, and of course each other here at SLC Dunk.

Recently Lawrence Frank called the Jazz "instigators" and Rick Carlisle said the Jazz beat the Mavs by "thuggin' it up" (See Bill Oram's article in the trib)

Paul Millsap said he takes it as a compliment. Playing hard and being tough has been apart of the Jazz from the ground up.

Ty Corbin said:

"You have to play this game with the determination to be who you are," coach Tyrone Corbin said. "Force your will on people and stand up for yourself and be aggressive. And that’s how you have a chance to be successful. The rules are what the rules are and we play by the rules, but we play hard."

Personally I felt during the Boozer- Williams era they Jazz were a bunch of softies. They played hard but they weren't tough in the Karl Malone sense of the word tough. Are the Jazz starting to play that physical brand of "Jazz basektball" and do you like it?

Derrick Favors being completely bad and sexy (#52). He's completely living up to the Jazz's toughness rep here:

Remember how one of our last happy moments in the 2010-2011 season came against the Cavs. Well with ib00gie tweeting she's in Utah and CJ returning to the ESA for the first time since he left the Jazz. I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane. Cavs vs Jazz January 2011, one of my favorite Jazz plays ever and I saw it live!