Downbeat #1796: Sick of Moral Victories, Ready for Real Ones

Welcome to a new week, Jazz fans! A week for the Jazz to bounce-back from a pair of heartbreakingly close losses to fellow division rival (and equally confusing team name to ours in the singular/plural usage department), the Thunder.

This week, the Jazz deal with 3 fellow Western teams.

First-up is a heated match-up at the undefeated at home Spurs tonight at 6:30 PM.

On Wednesday, we play the injury-and-chemistry-riddled Pelicans at home at 7:00 PM.

Last game of the week, will be against the Nuggets at home at 7:00 PM.

I like our odds of going undefeated against Non-Spursian teams this week.

Last night, the Jazz had another "moral victory." May I just announce right now, that the concept of the "moral victory" is one of my least favorites for my team to be a part of.

Yes, we are showing great signs of growth and steps in the right direction.

Hanging with the other teams that are seen as true contenders (more so in the Warriors gut-wrenching loss) is better than getting blown out, I guess.... But it's still another addition to the loss column.

The big boys do not feel good about moral victories. It pisses them off the most. I can handle getting beat-down by a team that is highly superior (see: game we play tonight). But losing those close games in very winnable games, in games that we lead for the vast majority of the final quarter, those are the most agonizing moments of fandom.

17 1/2 years later, Jazz fans still have a bitter taste in their mouth left over from our beloved teams that were the zenith of our franchise thus far, crumble in crunch time against the greatest player this sport has ever seen.

And here we are again today, a quarter of the way through this season that was meant to be the season where the Jazz were supposed to be making noise, suffering with the all too familiar symptoms of crucial players being out for extended periods of time as well as multiple moral victories already this season.

Well, I'd like to say that I, JuMu, am sick of moral victories and ready for real ones.

Recap of last night's game by Amar: Oklahoma City Thunder 104 Utah Jazz 98 -- Stars come out to shine in overtime

Highlights // Jazz vs. Thunder https://t.co/tyn3n4tK8C

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) December 14, 2015

The Jazz missed their first 9 shot attempts of overtime. They only scored a pity bucket at the end.

The Jazz were leading the first 11:11 of overtime, before the Thunder caught the Jazz right where they wanted them.

The Jazz went 1 for 4 from the free throw line in the 4th quarter while Booker continues to have the worst season of his career in a contract year, no doubt.

Is this an unforeseen byproduct of the ludicrous jumps in team salary the next couple seasons?

Will players who previously only would have made the minimum after underwhelming contract years like this, still get away with making $5-8+ million per year just because every team has cap space: the ultimate players' market...

In a downbeat earlier this year, it was shown that Rudy Gobert plays popular mobile game clash of clans, it looks like Gordon Hayward is a part of the action as well.

.#ClashOfClans Help PlZ! @gordonhayward and I are in need of active players to help us grow into a powerful clan. Clan name: Time Will Tell

— Boris (@BorisGolubov) December 12, 2015

His clan is currently open for anyone to join, so if you play the game and are interested, go ahead and see if you can hang with Hayward's squad.

From the looks of it, it appears that Hayward's profile on the game is "| GTIme |" and he's a level 76, town hall 8 with a semi-rushed base and underwhelming number of war stars with just 73.  Compare that to Gobert's account "icerud" who is a level 95, town hall 9 with a much stronger base and 214 war stars. Rudy is our current Clash of Clans MVP.

#Analysis #JustTheFacts #ThisIsHowYouStayInTheGame #WhateverElseCondescendingPeopleSayTheseDays

And now I'll leave this here, just because I think we all can use a little pick-me-up.

Since this is the week of the new Star Wars movie (sorry if you were hoping to hide from the hype here), let's see what SLC Dunk's preference is in the poll today.

Also, feel free to make any Star Wars character to Jazz player connections in the comments.