The Utah Jazz | as seen by Basketball John

I’m calling upon Chris Paul to immediately give up his spot on the All-star team and give it to Deron Williams.

The two have been compared since they were taken 3 & 4 in the 2005 draft. Deron started out slow his rookie year but finished strong to take over the starting PG stop. And in his second year, he led the upstart Jazz all the way to the WCF.

Paul on the other hand was the immediate starting PG for the Hornets in his first year. He was slowed by injury in his sophomore stint, playing in only 68 games.

And now in their third years, both Williams and Paul have raised their games and are amongst the best PGs in the game. Statistically, Paul has a slight edge in points and assists while Deron leads in field goal and three-point percentage. Yet Paul gets all the love from the media, the All-star nod and the MVP talk.

The comparisons will probably never end between the two. But the great thing about basketball, compared to other major sports, is that great players can go one-on-one. You had the Magic/Bird/Jordan battles. You had Malone and Barkley going at it. Great pitchers don’t really go one-on-one. And HOF offensive football players can’t go head-to-head. But in basketball, players have the opportunity to fight it out and one-up each other.

And so it happened Monday night when Deron Williams went out and embarrassed Chris Paul and the Hornets to the tune of 29 points and 11 assists on 11-13 shooting. And a lot of the time, Paul wasn’t even assigned to guard Williams because Deron presented such a match-up problem for Paul. How can you be considered amongst the best when you can’t guard your counterpart? While Deron was lighting it up, he did guard Paul and forced him into one of the worst nights of his career. CP3 scored only 6 points on 3-11 shooting to go along with 5 turnovers and 5 fouls. Paul’s record lifetime against the Jazz is now 1-7. When asked after the game if this was a statement game for him after being snubbed for the AS team, Deron replied, “A little bit.” A little bit? I think Deron’s been planning this for a while now. And I’d like to take credit for my prediction of this game, as I get so little right.

Let there be no doubt that this was a statement game from Deron. He was snubbed for the second year in a row by the coaches. And he wasn’t even amongst the top ten in fan votes for the guard position. He had a lot to prove and what better way to do that than against the man you’re constantly compared with yet don’t get a fraction of the attention he does. He got into the lane at will and crossed up Paul and Pargo all night. Let’s see what we read on ESPN and other national media in the morning.

That said, did the Jazz have to go and mock Paul’s number? The Jazz nailed a franchise-record 14 three pointers. You didn’t see Chris trying to shoot so many 8-pointers. That included another record 7 threes in second quarter and the third record, 8 in a half. Korver led the way here with 6-8 from the arc, Deron was 3-4, CJ added 1, and Memo was 4-7. Boozer slacked on the threes, but he made plenty of twos for 19 points and 17 boards. This was nearly identical to his 19&16 he had the last time against NO.

And once again, the Jazz were stellar on defense. They weren’t without their lapses, but they had another 11 steals, forced 19 total turnovers, and held the Hornets to 45% shooting. Their D has been one of the biggest contributing factors in their 9-game winning streak.

And now with another solid win under their belt, the Jazz return to Denver, the site of their last loss, to take on the Nuggets. They beat Portland tonight to send the TrailBlazers to a 4-6 record in their last 10. I’ll repeat what I said before that loss. The Jazz went into Denver last year when the Nuggets had gotten close in the NW division race. The Jazz pulled out the win and weren’t threatened again. The season is still early, but a win would do a lot for the Jazz psyche against their division foes.

Blogcaps:

• Biased Fan
• My Utah Jazz
• Hornets 24/7

Other notes:

• In the other notable matchups, Boozer had the aforementioned 19&17 while David West went 4-12 for 12 points.
• Brewer had 11 while his almost replacement Peterson had 16. I think I’d still take Brewer.
• Despite Pargo scoring 17 above his season average with 24, how does this team compete with their bench? I admit I only know a couple of them, but how do they compete? And we saw tonight what happens when Paul doesn’t play.
• A lost a lot of respect for Paul when he clobbered Brewer on a fastbreak that should have been a flagrant foul. And then of course Brewer got a technical foul for getting hammered. The ref said he pushed Paul on the way down???