Two wins in a row. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to see that. You have to go back to the Nov 30 game against the Lakers and the Dec 3 game against the Heat for our last back-to-back victories. The Jazz were flying high at the time, having won 6 of 7. We won’t discuss what transpired over the next month but suffice to say it wasn’t pretty.

The Jazz were able to do enough to put away the 76ers, which had been playing pretty well on their road trip, and beat them 110-107.

Deron was one assist shy of his career high as he had 20 of the team’s 29 assists on the night. And we needed every one of them as the Jazz nearly let this one slip away after being woefully out-rebounded, 40-26. Also helping were the 7 three pointers and Memo finally having a good night going 8-14 to score 20. Boozer’s two late jumpers and Korver’s free throws helped secure it when it looked like the Sixers might sneak out a win.

Complete Box Score

It was a vintage game for Williams, if you can have vintage games at this stage of your career. He took shots when the team needed to have a basket and set up everyone perfectly. That’s the crazy part about assists, you have to rely on someone else making the basket for you to get credit for a stat. But being able to get a high number of assists, you have to find players that are in the right position for their game. Save Collins, you can feed almost anyone under the basket and know they’re going to be able to score there. But it takes a lot of skill to know where players are going to be on the floor and even more importantly, being able to get them the ball. It’s out of Deron’s hands as far as the shooter making the shot, but getting them the ball at the right place at the right time is probably a little more than half the battle. And that’s what makes nights of 20 assists so amazing.

So now after a couple days off, we’ll see if the Jazz will be able to keep it going in Portland on Saturday. In another crazy scheduling scheme, this will be the last time they meet this season. So as we head down the stretch in what looks like a three team race for the NW, we won’t have any more head-to-heads against them. A loss would put the Jazz at 1-3 on the season against Portland and ruin the tiebreaker if it were necessary. And a win would be a huge boost not only because it would be over an opponent ahead of us in the standings, but because it would be a very quality win on the road.

Other notes:

• The biggest non-story of the night was the return of Giri. He received some boos when he checked in and when he touched the ball. Lame. At least with Fisher I can understand some of the passion of hating him all of the sudden. But with Giri, what exactly are you booing? He hasn’t even said anything bad about the Jazz except that he didn’t get along with Sloan. He was traded and we improved. It’s like swapping dinners with someone else at a restaurant because your respective dinners aren’t doing it for you any more. And then when you go back to that restaurant and walk by someone with your old dinner, you yell at it, “You suck!” Makes no sense. Save your energy. We made Philly fans look good. (It was a little satisfying though to see the classic Giri travel though) More from Kragthorpe
• Brewer isn’t playing crunch-time since Korver came over. Korver had been lighting it up in the first half and didn’t play until late in the fourth. But it turned out well. Korver was clutch at the line. Brewer is no slouch at the stripe either, but it looks like Sloan thinks his defense is slipping.
• Bolerjack was bummed that he couldn’t say Boozer got a double-double. But they kept letting us know that with his next rebound, he would have another one. I think it was a double-double for Boler though with mentions of that and his MEMO! calls.

Other blog reax:

• Philly Burbs
• Depressed Fan