NBA Regular Season 2012-2013: Utah Jazz 112 at Charlotte Bobcats 102 -- Game Recap

NBA Regular Season 2012-2013, Game 37:

Utah Jazz 112 @ Charlotte Bobcats 102

#UTAatCHA Game Stream -- Rufus on Fire -- Jazz vs Bobcats coverage

Never sleep on a Bobcat. It could be a trap.

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Quick Recap:

• Who: Jazz bigs Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap
  
• What: obliterated the Bobcats
  
• When: in the first three quarters
  
• Where: on offense
  
• Why: because Bismack Biyombo, Tyrus Thomas, and Brendan Haywood aren't going to stop them.
  

Seriously, the Jazz shot 53.7 fg%, went 10/22 downtown (DeMarre Carroll went 2/2, Randy Foye 3/6, Gordon Hayward 4/5 among that barrage), had 40+ rebounds, 30+ assists, 11 blocks, 8 steals, and scored 112 points . . . with 8 players scoring at least 9 points . . . but the story of this game starts with Big Al and Sap. In the first quarter they went 7/9 fg, and 1/1 from the FT line. Second quarter they went 5/8, and 2/2 FT. Third Quarter? A combined 6/8 and 2/4 from the FT line. They didn't even have to finish the quarter as the game was out of reach and at 20 points for the vast majority of the second half. The final tally for our starting bigs was:

• Al: 26 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 4/4 FT, countless And-1s , and +24
• Paul: 19 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 blocks, 3/5 FT, +15

They ended up shooting 19/27. That's 70.4 fg%. It's not just that they were doing it by scoring, it was HOW they were scoring. Sure, they had their post ups and some outside jumpers too -- but they were scoring on the move, off of cuts, Paul was facing up his man and schooling him. Al was moving without the ball and finishing plays at the rim and getting fouled. It was essentially everything we wanted them to do.

While the mop up duty guys (Kevin Murphy and Jeremy Evans) took the foot off the pedal (a 20 point margin was brought down to 10), but it was a blow out through and through. This was the first time we've won without Marvin Williams in the line up, and we did it without Mo Williams either. Sure, Charlotte isn't a world beater, but we kicked their butts. That's what good teams do. I think last season this game is a lot closer if we play with 2 starters out.

Enes Kanter didn't have his best game of the year, Biyombo and Brendan H were too big for him. Favors did a great job scoring 10 points, going 5/5 and finishing on jumpers, turn around jumpers, and laups. He also had 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal.

The line up that we saw against Dallas (with Alec Burks, Randy Foye, and Gordon Hayward on the perimeter) came out again tonight to combat their Kemba Walker / Ben Gordon / Ramon Sessions / Gerald Henderson / Reggie Williams / Michael Kidd-Gilchrist legion of ball handlers. They did okay. Randy finished a +23, with 9 points, three big threes, 5 boards, and 4 assists. Off the bench Gordon and Alec both had solid games as well. They got the the line 8 times, scored 26 points, hit 4 threes (all Gordon), had 6 boards, 6 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, and a surprisingly high 3 turn overs. (One of them was at the end of the game, a garbage time over and back call) We will probably see more of that when we face the Atlanta Hawks on Friday (Louis Williams, Jeff Teague, Devin Harris, DeShawn Stevenson, and Kyle Korver), and the Detroit Pistons on Saturday (Rodney Stuckey, Brandon Knight, Will Bynum, and Kyle Singler).

Solid win for the Jazz on this road trip. Let's keep it up. Next two are a back to back. If we're the team our fans think we can be, then we need to win at least one more of those two. They won't be as easy as tonight was.