Oklahoma City Thunder (5-4) @ Utah Jazz (7-3)

[UTJazzFan_Echo1]

Unfortunately the last minute featured a lot of AK driving to the basket which usually results in a turnover. Oh well, on to the next one.

In all fairness, AK should have gotten a couple calls on those drives going down the stretch. AK got screwed more than anyone tonight...there was two different occasions where he ended up in the first row and somehow the foul was on him.

The Durant foul on CJ was comical, I couldn't believe he got away with it hahaha.

The absence of Bell hurt us a lot more than I think most people realized. We could have stuck him on Westbrook in the second half when he was starting to heat up (and given Deron more of a breather). He probably would have been able to at least slow him down a bit more down the stretch than anyone else we had out there. If Bell was in the game I bet the Jazz win fairly easy.

On a positive note....Hayward didn't look too bad and Millsap made another three...

[carrottop12]

Three plays that cost the Jazz the game.

1. Deron gives Millsap the ball at the high post. Millsap spins, dribbles towards the out of bounds line, turns to pass and throws it right to 3 OKC players.

2. Jazz need a stop, they force Durant into a missed jumper and Kristic gets a tip in where neither Millsap or Jefferson boxed out.

3. Jazz have 14 seconds on the inbound play, AK passes it in, gets the ball right back and launches a terrible 3, which may have been because he didn't realize the play clock reset.

[UTJazzFan_Echo1]

4. Jazz get the stop with 36ish seconds left....down by three. D-Will takes his time going up the floor, gives the ball up, Jazz don't get the basket. Game over.

Should have drove all the way off the inbounds. Would have gotten the 2 for 1 and most likely would have been down by only 1. I'm not sure why he didn't push the ball up the floor but whatever, he is human.

[Reckless]

F'ing thunder, I swear to god they always save their best shooting nights for us. Serge Ibaka, GTFO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Efernand]

3. Jazz have 14 seconds on the inbound play, AK passes it in, gets the ball right back and launches a terrible 3, which may have been because he didn't realize the play clock reset.

Yes that's definitely what happened. There were 3 seconds left when the whistle sounded, he didn't know it got reset to 14. Hell, when I was watching I thought there were 3 seconds left too and when he was getting ready to inbound the ball I was wondering why the hell all the other Jazz guys were standing around relaxed instead of rushing and trying to get open for AK to pass them the ball.

[Reckless]

On the broadcast you could hear sloan yelling to the players that the shot clock was reset. guess AK tuned him out.

[GP]

Ditto on the previous two posts regarding Big Al. I REALLY want to love the guy, but I"m just not feeling it as of yet[b]. He's not nearly the dominant rebounder I thought he was. His offense near the basket is that of a dude six inches shorter than he is and even though he puts out more effort on defense than Boozer, he's no better and perhaps not even as good which is scary. The game featured terrible officiating which is no surprise considering it was Javie, but still was winnable. Unfortunately the last minute featured a lot of AK driving to the basket which usually results in a turnover. Oh well, on to the next one.

+1.

Boozer: Says the wrong things, doesn't look like he cares, puts up allstar numbers.

Al: Says the right things, seems to really care, looks like a role player.

Go figure.

[Ming Kong!]

Come on now, Al Jefferson has been slow to pick up the system, but a role player? I expect 16/10 once he picks it up, which is great for a 3rd option.

[outerspacefella]

Jefferson will be fine; he only has to do 2 things:
- box out
- make the easy ones

[seejaydeja]

LOL @ all the fans blaming this L on the refs. Anytime I see another fan in here during a Jazz W blaming their team's loss on the refs, this place gets up in arms. If the table was turned you all would be singing a much different tune.

The loss came down to execution, CJ got too trigger happy towards the end when the ball should have been in D-Will's hands. You can't beat a team when they shoot that well from the field. Ibaka alone drained at least 4 WIDE OPEN jumpers. They had the hot hand, can't blame the refs for that.

[gojazzmjsucks]

Poor offensive sets down the stretch!Looked like we were running around with our heads cut off. CJ took some bad shots too. Getting to the end of my patients with him.

[UTJazzFan_Echo1]

LOL @ all the fans blaming this L on the refs. Anytime I see another fan in here during a Jazz W blaming their team's loss on the refs, this place gets up in arms. If the table was turned you all would be singing a much different tune.

The loss came down to execution, CJ got too trigger happy towards the end when the ball should have been in D-Will's hands. You can't beat a team when they shoot that well from the field. Ibaka alone drained at least 4 WIDE OPEN jumpers. They had the hot hand, can't blame the refs for that.

I'm pretty sure most of us are giving a lot of the credit to OKC but we can't help but feel as if the refs played a role in cutting our legs out from under us. It's not like the refs won the game for them but they certainly didn't call a fair game either.

[Soul Patch]

97% from the line. That's hard to beat.

The crowd went insane after the Millsap 3 and there were a couple really good defense chants during the fourth quarter. I had a blast, this lost didn't shake me up one bit.

[HammerDunk]

So, I didn't get a chance to say a couple things about this game for a couple reasons. One, I couldn't watch the end, I had to listen as I drove, and second, I was so freaking pissed I had to distance myself from the computer before I sent death threats to Stern and Javie. Now that I've calmed down, I have a couple thoughts.

First, this game was crazy. Nevermind the free throws, they were hitting EVERY SHOT. The guys that rarely shoot from the outside, Ibaka, Maynor and Krstic, were on fire. Westbrook was absolutely money late in the game, much more so than Durant (other than free throws). I pray Westbrook never develops his outside shot as that's the only thing holding him back from being as good as Deron. Bearing this in mind, the Thunder were nearly as unbeatable as it gets in this league. You give that team that many free throws, and I would be surprised if anyone beat them.

I actually have very little bad to say about this game for the Jazz. If they play that well, they win probably 95% of the time, and if Al Jefferson has a good game, they win. The turnovers near the end were really the only thing they did wrong (and AK's brain-fart), and boy did they kill them. They even played pretty good defense. You let Ibaka, Maynor and Krstic beat you every time, and you will usually win. Watson was promising. Hayward played better than he looked. Al has GOT to get his offensive game more efficient, and I'm getting tired of watching him get outrebounded. Deron, CJ, and AK all played great. Millsap had a rare bad rebounding game, and we needed his rebounds really bad in this one.

This loss simply cancels out the one we stole in OKC, which I definitely didn't think they would win. It's nice considering I thought they would only have 4 wins at this point.

[gojazzmjsucks]

The Thunder are one hell of a team! Im happy being 1 and 1 with them in the series. I think it comes down to us and them for the division this year!