YouTube recap

Well, well. Look who played crunch time minutes, Mr. Kirilenko. And look who won? Man, that’s a coincidence. Here’s his line: 2 points on 1-2 shooting, 3 rebounds, and 0 blocked shots. Here’s a stat that they should put in for players, what did they guy who you were guarding shoot? In this case, McGrady shot 9-23. Andrei was all over him all night. And where the Jazz have faltered the last two games, the 3rd and 4th quarters, they put it away. One of the reasons why there were able to do that was McGrady was not able to get it going and get the Rockets back in the game. So although the stat line won’t show it, Kirilenko was the biggest factor in the win. He showed that he didn’t need to contribute offensively to help the team. He had one purpose and that was to take McGrady out of the game. You could tell AK had a different aura about him tonight. Hey, maybe the translation thing worked.

And finally the Rocket’s poor shooting caught up with them. They shot only 33% tonight. I think that puts them in the mid 30s for the series. It’s amazing they’ve won two games. The Jazz didn’t shoot that much better, shooting 39% and an Ostertag-like 2-15 from downtown.

And probably the biggest factor for the win was this stat: 33-0. Apparently Van Gundy gave his bench the night off because no one scored. I remember when the Jazz were playing out of their heads and winning every game convincingly. Their bench was by far head and shoulders above any other team. Brewer, Millsap, and CJ Miles were all playing significant minutes. And now Millsap is the only one that doesn’t have to worry about the dreaded DNP or inactive tag.

Other notes… Yao almost outshot the Jazz by himself from the free-throw line; 18 attempts to Utah’s 16. Okur’s offensive woes continue. He shot a miserable 2-12 and 0-6 from three. To his credit, he played Yao well and made some nice plays on that end. If only one of those threes would go in, it would start building his confidence back up. It was nice to see him still take them though instead of passing them up and dishing to Fisher.

Well, it’s game 4 Saturday, another “must-win.” The Jazz need to hold serve on their own court and go back to Houston on Monday and grab that one too. If they win the next two, that would let them play at home for the series win.

Technorati tags: utah Jazz, houston rockets, andrei kirilenko, nba, playoffs