Utah Jazz Recap Vs Denver Nuggets Jan 13 2014 Burks Shines Throughout

QuickCap

Gordon Hayward sat out his second straight game.

The first quarter was fast and furious with both teams pushing the ball at every chance. Trey Burke started off the quarter hot and Alec Burks finished the quarter with nine. The Utah Jazz lead the Denver Nuggets 35-31 at the end of the first quarter. Burke left the game with a jammed ankle and returned in the second quarter at the 6:37 mark. The Utah Jazz had the lead 44-36 at that point. The Jazz would finish the half on a tear scoring 23 points over the final six minutes. The score at halftime was 67-53.

The Jazz started the third quarter on a 7-0 pushing the lead to 18 at the 9:00 minute mark. T and A pushed the lead to 89-65 at the 5:02 mark with some great fast break passes forcing Denver to call a timeout. Denver came out of the timeout on a 7-0 run with a small lineup. Denver's small lineup chipped the deficit to16 83-77 at the end the third.

The fourth quarter started where the third left off... The Nuggets forced three quick turnovers and cut the lead to 14 forcing coach Corbin to call a timeout at the 9:45 mark.  If you missed the game the Nuggets changed the way they handled the pic and roll. They pushed Burke out and tried to trap him, this caused problems when Enes Kanter was the roller. Alec Burks had a fabulous behind the back crossover on Foye, of which Randy Foye took exception to. Randy hit a three on the other end of the court to cut the Jazz lead to 12,105-93 with 5:44 left in the game.  The Jazz, led by Alec Burks, held off Ty Lawson and Nuggets as they pulled out a win at home 118-103.

Five Positives

First Half Tempo- The Nuggets pushed the tempo and the Jazz answered punch for punch. The Jazz scored a season high (one half) 67 points in the first. This was without Hayward.

Jeremy Evans first half - He was great on defense and  fabulous on the offensive boards and tips outs. He is really understanding the offense and how to use the spacing to his advantage. His ability to grab rebounds over and around other players is fantastic. He had 5 rebounds and 6 points in the first half.

First Half Turnovers- One, the Jazz had one turnover in the first half. I repeat one.

The front court Burke/Burks was fantastic tonight, and the Nuggets had no answer. Here is the combined  stat line.

52 Points, 13 assists, 5 Rebounds, 1 steal, and 3 turnovers.

Burks was phenomenal.

One Negative

Helping the Helper- J.J. Hickson had a monster (for him) night.  A lot of this was due to Lawson and Robinson getting into the lane forcing bigs to leave their guys. This forced a defensive rotation that wasn't at its best. Hickson took advantage of this and scored on a lot of interior passes.