Game #67: Knicks @ Jazz Recap

Everyone's saying it. The player's, even. "This next one is a big one for us. We gotta come out with intensity, purpose, and urgency." Unfortunately, the Jazz continue their spiral as they missed an important opportunity to even leap the Lakers in the standings (who lost by 23 at home.. to the Suns) and gain a game on Houston, who lost on Sunday. The Jazz have been given plenty of opportunities to take hold of their own playoff destiny, but haven't been able to make anything significant happen. Its likely that this season will go down much like last; down to the wire and the Jazz needing all the stars to align.

Uninspired is one way to put how this game went down. Brutal is the correct tone. The game never really got out of their reach, until the final two minutes, but it never seemed attainable either. The stories will say things about the Knicks being without Melo, Chandler, and Amar'e, and that's important, but the Jazz couldn't put anything together. The box score is an abomination. Favors had one of his most frustrating games of the year, but the effort was there: He went to the line 12 times... but only made 5. Kind of sums up the whole night really. Mo and Al were terrible on both sides (8-27 and getting worked by the likes of Felton and Chris Copeland). Sap and Kanter were throwing the ball away like it was a Stielhandgranat (7 TO's). They didn't run (5 fast break points) and they didn't pound the paint (22 points in the aforementioned area). No lineup worked. No lineup really played better than the other. The effort needed to make hard cuts, crisp passes, and smart rotations was all diverted to crashing the glass as their 19 ORB's were the only thing that kept them in the game.