The Utah Jazz | as seen by Basketball John

I hope you got your fill of Turkey and Booze last week, because you weren’t getting any tonight.  Okur was out with back spasms still and Booze was letting his ankle heal a little more.

No matter as Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko led the charge and got a revenge win over the visiting Lakers.  Deron had a career-high 35 points and became the go-to scorer for the night.  He relinquished the assist duties to AK, who had his third career triple-double with 11 assists, 11 boards, and 20 points, not to mention 4 blocks and 6 steals.  Millsap and Brewer added 20 & 14 respectively.

And with two big guys out, the Jazz had to bring up Fess from down the road.  He played in his first official NBA game and didn’t seem to show any signs of being nervous or intimidated.  He went for 6 & 7, already career highs!  If we see much more of him, the ESA is going to start chanting his name when Collins is in.

Full Box Score

The Jazz led by 19 at the break and were never seriously threatened after that.  They pushed the lead to as much as 28, but it didn’t seem to get below 17 from that point on.  The controlled the second half, holding Kobe to only 6 points.  The second half is usually when the Jazz give it up to the elite players, but not this night.  They held LA to 44% shooting and the Lakers could never get in a rhythm.

A couple of glaring stats, one good and one bad.  First the bad.  Deron had a whopping 9 turnovers.  The Jazz only had 3 the entire first half.  But the biggest stat of the night was 70 points in the paint.  I don’t know what the record is, but I don’t remember anything that high.  But an even more astounding 52 of those came in the first half out of 70 total points.  And they say our interior defense is lacking.

Kirilenko had to be salivating to be the man again.  You could see see him mentally going back to the 03-04 season.  He was the dominant AK that earned the max contract.  Although I advocated trading him for Marion before the season started, I’m glad they didn’t.  Those hindsight glasses work great.  Could Marion put on a performance and put up the number like AK did?  AK should be the backup point guard.  He also had a nice full-court football pass to Williams for a layup, reminiscent of the Stockton to Malone pass against the Bulls in the playoffs.

Let’s hope they can keep him and the other parts of the core for at least the next few years.

Overall, a win against the Lakers and shutting up their fans that attend the games at the ESA is one of the sweetest things for Jazz fans.  And it’s especially savory because Boozer and Okur weren’t playing.  We could have Knicked them.

Fesenko Interview - Apparently he didn’t even have time to pack a change of clothes
Kirilenko Interview - AK has been cut.  See, he’s human.
ESPN highlights - The Lakers have a new sensation, Jobe.

Other random notes:

• Crittenton was added to the long list of AK rejections when he tried his best Kobe “going away from the basket, hop, travel, reverse layup” move and got made a fool.  Just like they keep track of how many parks a batters hits a home run in or who they’ve hit them off of, the NBA should keep track of how many unique players have been swatted by a particular player.
• Phil Jackson will have to start earning that new $24 million extension next game.
• Fesenko was hot when he first came in and played pretty solid in the second half in limited action.  But you can one weakness is running up his foul totals quick as do most rookies.
• Millsap looks to be getting back into his 06-07 form.  He had 20 (a career high) & 9.  Maybe because his 10 & 10 are the norm now he’s not surprising anyone this year.  He wasn’t expected to do what he did last year and now we take it for granted.
• Looks like Kobe still prefers the jump shop karate chop to try to make it look like he got fouled.
• And Odom must have just wanted out of the game.  Fouling Brewer on a break-away was understandable.  But then he didn’t let go of Brewer’s arm and threw him to the ground.
• Does Williams have the best crossover in the game today?  It wasn’t fair to Radmanovic.  He got schooled twice.  Try picking on someone your own size Deron.  Oh, that’s right, he crossed up Fisher too.
• The Jazz cannot play transition or fast break D to save their lives.  One guard has got to stay back if the other’s going for the board.
• Sloan was finally forced to play Giri.  I found out what happened.  Apparently Giri was caught reading a New Holland tractor catalog.  There was a whole blue v. green argument with Sloan.  Giri was just staying loyal to his European roots.  People’s mommas came up.  Miller was trying to mediate.  Ugly, ugly.
• Weird note from Ross Siler, Sloan has Flash season tickets.  They made Sloan buy tickets?  Do they make him pay for his Skittles too?  There’s no reciprocity?
• Fisher was surprised by the boos.  Why would he be?  He’s a Laker again, probably the most hated franchise of Jazz fans.  Was he picked on a bit?  Sure.  But he acted like the fans were abusing his daughter or something.  But I thank him for last year and his 1-8 shooting tonight.