Jazz vs. Spurs 11/05/09 It's time for a slump buster

[schneiderjazz]

Game over. Deron and Boozer were absolute beasts tonight.

[Ming Kong!]

Boozer has the 5th highest +/- on the team tonight, just shows you how meaningless the stat is.

[kamazilla]

Yeah, Millsap doesn't get any calls at all... That better change if he's our guy in the future. Jazz showed they actually can play with intensity and composure, hope it carries over into the rest of the season. And lastly, its always nice to discover a new sparkplug- ie. Matthews.

[Ming Kong!]

Damn does Boozer stuff his nose with money? IT'S HUGE!!!

[Ming Kong!]

Kirilenko had another solid night, 12pts 6asts 2blks, and the Spurs forwards were pretty ineffective.

[majortripps69]

Boozer has the 5th highest +/- on the team tonight, just shows you how meaningless the stat is.

Agreed. I have always hated this stat. Boozer was the difference maker tonight. DWill can't win games by himself and someone finally stepped up and played well. We all know Boozers defensive challenges, but he was a beast tonight on that end as well.

[Sloanfeld]

That was not a kick ball in the second half tonight. It's only a kick if it's intentional, so our fans were wrong. I get into an argument when I play ball with people over this.

http://www.nba.com/analysis/rules_10.ht ... rticleList

Section V-Strike the Ball
a. A player shall not kick the ball or strike it with the fist.
b. Kicking the ball or striking it with any part of the leg is a violation when it is an intentional act. The ball accidentally striking the foot, the leg or fist is not a violation.
PENALTY:
(1) If the violation is by the offense, the ball is awarded to the opposing team at the sideline nearest the spot of the violation but no nearer to the base-line than the free throw line extended.
(2) If the violation is by the defense while the ball is in play, the offensive team retains possession of the ball at the sideline nearest the spot of the violation but no nearer the baseline than the foul line extended.
(3) If the violation occurs during a throw-in, the opposing team retains possession at the spot of the original throw-in with all privileges, if any, remaining.

Just had to point that out.

[UTJazzFan_Echo1]

Great win tonight, still going to wait to say that the season is saved until we start playing like this on the road. Boozer looked good but still seemed a bit weak with his inside game. Deron played great, AK looked solid, Matthews was awesome off of the bench, Brewer and Okur had solid games too.

Defense looked great for the first time in years.

Millsap got screwed all game long with the refs but looked good while he was in.

Spurs are starting to look really old...

[schneiderjazz]

Gotta give props to Sloan on this one too. Parker was killing us in the 1st half and he was basically shut down in the 2nd. It had been a long time since I've seen the Jazz play such good defense.

[outerspacefella]

- Great game by Boozer. He played very well on both ends of the floor. It would be nice to see more of this.

- Great game by Williams. He filled his stat line and manhandled the flow of the game.

- Matthews played solid D; he really took Ginobili out of hs comfort game... that was awesome; I hope Sloan find a way to give him some PT when Korver/Miles return; he seems to be a keeper... and his teammates trust him.

[HolyToledo]

Great effort again by the players and Boozer even worked hard and played great on both ends of the floor. The effort was there against Mavs as well but dumb coaching cost us. So I an happy with the way the players are playing, so where to do we go from here.

I am not sure as Boozer surprised me today!!! One of two possibilities must occur soon:

1) Trade Boozer after another couple of good games and Cleveland looks desperate to change their roster and Detroit wants to purge long term contracts;

or

2) Keep Boozer for the season maybe even adding salary by trading a Harpring for a solid veteran contributor.

I do think waiting until the trading deadline might get you the best offer for Boozer but also cuts team chemstry too much into the season. Now is the time for the Jazz to act or decide to hold their cards letting Boozer leave at end of year.

[HammerDunk]

Man it feels good to get a good win finally! I was very impressed with how the team played, but was very surprised that SA didn't take more corner 3 pointers. I hope that was something our D was preventing, but it almost seemed like they just wanted to try and get interior points, which our bigs stopped very well tonight.

It was good to see Boozer have a monster game, but I still have a back feeling that this will not be as common as we hope. Let's hope I'm wrong, because he was pretty much unstoppable, except for when he was right under the hoop. He gets worked under there more than any other player I have seen! Great performance, nonetheless.

DWill was absolutely lights out tonight. He looked awesome leading this team to this much needed win. He was incredible, and only had 2 turnovers!

AK has been our most solid starter, other than Deron this season, and he backed that up with another great effort tonight. His added bulk is proving to add much to his game.

The bench, namely Matthews, was awesome tonight. He was exactly what we needed and what we will need every game. Price didn't have a great game, but things didn't get out of hand when he was out there either. We were only -4 with him at the helm, which helped a lot getting Deron some much needed bench minutes.

Most surprising was our defense. It was good, really good! We shut down Parker for pretty much all of the 2nd half, he couldn't even get into the lane. I can't remember the last time our interior defense did that well. Boozer even had 2 blocks! I still think our perimeter D is not good. We were lucky that they didn't make more of those wide open 3's around the edges.

Carlos, please keep putting up games like this, it is going to give you much better trade value, and we ALL want that!

[majortripps69]

Anyone else happen to hear the comment Collins made tonight on TV about Millsap and his foul problems? I never realized it, but according to Collins, Millsap had the second most fouls of any player last year. Given the foul problems he has had in five games so far this year, I can see why. Does he just not get any love, is it reputation or what? All I know is that he can't be at all effective sitting on the bench or being tentative trying not to get another foul.

[StocktonShorts]

Boozer has the 5th highest +/- on the team tonight, just shows you how meaningless the stat is.

You're right, straight-up (non-adjusted) +/- isn't a very good stat, and it's almost meaningless on a per-game basis. I actually don't like it being included it in the boxscores for that reason.

On the other hand, looking at adjusted +/- over the course of a season is worthwhile.

[erudite23]

The Jazz are starting to show signs of helping each other defensively. This has been the single biggest team weakness over the last few years. We've seen it sporadically through the first few games, but this was the first sustained effort over the course of an entire game that I've seen since the new regime with Booz, Okur, Deron and the boys have been here. This is going to be a bumpy ride for the month of November and into December, but there is a chance we'll see this team come together defensively as the season progresses. We really have begun to see the effort on defense show up, but you don't just suddenly become good at something. It takes repetition. I like what I see.

But at this point, our perimeter shooting is so bad we will have games where we literally cannot score. CJ and Kyle can't get back soon enough.

[jazzed77]

Boozer's great defensive game was a double edge sword for me....I loved seeing it but it pissed me off that he doesn't give that effort consistently!!! BTW am I the only one impressed by Okur's post game?

[Ming Kong!]

Considering that we won two, and the 3 games we lost we were up at the half, there might be hope, we just need to make adjustments in the second half. Our rotations are also very different this year with Kirilenko playing close to 40mpg, and Miles, Korver and Harpring out, along with having Mathews now, and Fesenko getting PT. The season just started too, so it's a little soon to think we're completely imploding at this point. There are certainly positives and negatives at this point.

Pros:
Williams has taken his game up a notch
Kirilenko has been consistently productive
Brewer has shown improvements on offense
Price has been pretty solid
Mathews is off to a fantastic start
Fesenko has provided quality minutes in his PT

Cons:
Our big men have been inconsistent thus far
Poor/no adjustments in times of need (second half/fourth quarter)
Lack of energy/heart in the second half/fourth quarter
Obviously injuries haven't helped