Recap - Utah Jazz @ Denver Nuggets - 6 February 2008 - Thugs, Coccyx, and Product
February 6th, 2008 by 
Basketball John
We had no Korver, no Boozer, and no zone in the second half, but the Jazz pulled it out. This game could be the game where this young team crosses over into the veteran, championship-type team. We saw how they overcame poor night from Booze, Millsap and Okur fouling out, a hostile environment, two all-stars, and what seemed like all the calls going against them, yet still walked away from Denver with the 118-115 W.
And it was all Deron tonight. He continued his revenge tour with another 29 & 11. His biggest shot was his three in regulation to tie it up. How many of those have we seen and how many more will we see? He also played great D on AI in OT when Iverson was taking the potential game-winning shot. Williams finally seems to be stepping into and earning that leadership role. I didn’t see that early in the season, even when the Jazz started out well. Here was my comment on my halftime post. You could just see that Deron was going to take over and not let the Jazz lose this one. Him getting snubbed was the best thing that happened to this team.
We also saw why the Jazz have won 10 in a row and 16 of their last 18. Kyle Elliot Korver. He was cold in the second half, but made two huge free throws to seal it (after missing two in a row earlier). He finished with 27. A quick thought on Korver’s arrival. I wonder if his affect on the women here will result in a spike of babies come September. I guess in Utah it would have to be pretty significant to be noticed. I’ll have to find out the stats.
Boozer was atrocious to say it nicely. He missed numerous bunnies and even more jump-shots to finish 3-15 for 8 points. Memo was solid with 15 & 10. AK didn’t have his best game. He was trying to take Melo off the dribble. That’s not his game at all. And Harp had a solid game. He added 13 but his biggest contribution was getting into the heads of Melo and Martin. Why does he attract all the crazies? First Artest, and now the two Denver head cases.
How about those thugs on the other side of the ball tonight? The biggest scare came when Kenyon went head-hunting on Brewer. He had no chance at the ball. And even after he nailed him in the head, he held on to his shoulder and pulled him down. Brewer landed right on his tailbone. He returned but left a short time later. The latest is that it’s a bruised coccyx. So he might miss a couple. And hopefully Martin does too.
It was rough all night. Harp was his usual self, banging with Melo and Najera. Deron got leveled when Carter went for a head-fake and crashed into Willie. AI was hammered by on the same type of play by Millsap. The bench looked like the bench of old with 50 points compared to Denver’s 10.
It’s amazing that there’s still star treatment in the NBA. Melo and AI were pushing off or hooking their opponents all night long. It was the only way they could get separation from their defender.
The Jazz let the Nuggets back in the game in the second half by having a ton of turnovers and not running the offense. I’m not a basketball play guru by any means, but I can tell when they Jazz aren’t running their offense right. They weren’t getting cutters or layups. They also couldn’t grab a defensive board if they would have been the only ones on the court. But then there would have to be someone else to shoot it. Okay, so if there were 5 Jazz men and 1 Nugget. And what happened to the zone defense in the second half? They were shutting down the Nuggs with it and then went away from it.
With the Jazz win and PHX’s loss tonight, the Jazz are only 2 1/2 games out of first. Who saw that coming a month and a half ago? We’ll see what happens with the arrival of Shaq in PHX. I don’t think it drops the Suns that much despite Shaq not having any legs any more. How many games can he play in though for the rest of the season? And once they get to the playoffs, will he have enough juice to be a factor?
Other notes:
- No Kleiza repeat. He finished with only 9.
- Korver didn’t seem to have any hair product in the first half. But he was all done up for the second half. Maybe it left his hands a little greasy. That would account for the two missed FTs and 0-fer from three-pint land.
- Does Harp hit from anywhere else other than 16 feet out? It’s either from the elbow or the baseline.
- Speaking of Harp. Instead of $50 for every three for Habitat for Humanity, they should give $5 for every Bolerjack football reference on Matt. New Orleans would be rebuilt by now.
- Shouldn’t we rename the ESA Coke Court? It would add to the rivalry with Denver. Although a caffeine sponsorship would only be surpassed in the amount of furor by Hillary winning Utah.
- The Jazz have been nailed for quote a few clear-path fouls this year. Yet Najera grabs AK on a sure fast-break dunk and nothing. At least the refs were consistent with the rest of the officiating.
- How much does it say that Collins stayed on the bench when Memo fouled out? Sloan went with AK in the middle. Maybe Sloan is coming around.
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Posted in Deron Williams, Jerry Sloan, Recap, Ronnie Brewer | 
February 7th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Word is that Collins was sick. I was wondering about him myself, for the first time in 6 seasons I was wishing he was out there. I REALLY wanted Price to stay at the backup, but Sloan made it clear that he would be going back to hart…LAME
February 7th, 2008 at 3:36 am
“Him getting snubbed was the best thing that happened to this team.”
But such is a short term spike, which is what we do not desire, course Deron seems to be a very different kind of guy it’s possible this could provide a spark all the way to the… I won’t say it. He has to know that he is way beyond those mere players in the all-star game, and he is!
“I wonder if his affect on the women here will result in a spike of babies come September.”
If it does we can only hope that they all have a husband as well! Such could inspire that PhillyGirl to come west as well! Protect her turf?
“He added 13 but his biggest contribution was getting into the heads of Melo and Martin. Why does he attract all the crazies? First Artest and now the two Denver head cases.”
Because Matt is such a picture of pure perfection, he is as good or better than those he goes up against and some folks thinks his tan is not where it should be to able to perform as well as he does. So much for that movie about Jimmy Hendricks eh?
“Melo and AI were pushing off or hooking their opponents all night long.”
And you pointed out, facing a solid 8 man team is tough as nails. The whistle blowers had blinders on most of the game, well at one end of the court anyway.
“Speaking of Harp. Instead of $50 for every three for Habitat for Humanity, they should give $5 for every Bolerjack football reference on Matt. New Orleans would be rebuilt by now.”
Boler has to talk about more than BB, he seems to get confused easily, or maybe he spent too much time with Harps dad, who knows for sure. But I think you are correct.
Oh and after this game, I suggest we pad up for the next round with these street thugs.
Hopefully a REAL officiating crew can be found as well. Even with the calls we did get, and there were plenty, they missed or did not call but about half that were available to them. Especially when our guys were being slashed at, drug to the court and flat out body slammed! They evidently have not been informed what a Flagrant foul is! The double T that hit harp was outrageous! Cassell got thrown out of a game tonight for just one sad infraction, we suffered what three? Best we got was a foul. I am frankly amazed we won this game with the crew Denver had on their payroll, totally amazed!
I can’t get over what an amazing bunch of guys we have on this team! With all the SH*T that was flowing on the court tonight, and nobody on our team will get a suspension over it. But for sure at least one was earned for Denver. K-Mart deserves a Martha Stewart vacation! The ref crew needs some time off to retrain as well something like Special High Intensity Training.
Seems that Hart did not hurt us tonight, not near as much as I perceive he has in the past. He did good, musta been watching Ronnie about to take him out of the rotation. Collins’s big body was missed, maybe he was not well, cuz he can bang em with the biggest.
Astounding game tonight! Loved it and big time!
GO JAZZ!!
February 7th, 2008 at 5:57 am
You win for longest comment ever :). Yeah, my Korver comment was meant as getting all the women worked up, thus the babies with their husbands come Sept.
And if you’re a drinker, which I’m not, listen for football references about Matt in the next game and take a shot. You’ll be out in 5 minutes.
February 7th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Great post, man. My only wish was that this game was on national TV so the entire country could see how well the Jazz are playing, how competitive a game it was, and how cheap the Nuggets were in playing their version of “physical” basketball.
I saw the game on League Pass, so it happened to be broadcast by the Nuggets network. I wasn’t too surprised about the biased commentary by the Nuggets announcers (complaining about every bump on A.I. that wasn’t called a foul, never giving the benefit of the doubt to the opposing team, garden variety biased announcing)…with the exception of the following instances:
1. K-mart’s flagrant on Ronnie: They showed the replay at least 3 times and yet they still maintained that K-mart should not have gotten a flagrant. They kept saying that it was an accident and simply looked worse than it actually was, which is why the officials charged him with a flagrant.
2. Matt Harpring’s extracurriculars: They repeatedly labeled him an “instigator” against anybody he came in contact with (Melo, Najera, K-mart). It started with what they called an “intentional” cheap shot against K-mart in the third quarter (when supposedly he was hit in the groin), and then Melo started playing the role of enforcer by pushing Harpring (he’s an idiot for not letting other players on his team do this). Now as we all know, pushing Harpring is like pushing Chuck Norris - you’re asking to get knocked the f*ck out. Did nobody learn from watching Artest deal with Harpring? The stupid thing is that on every single replay, it truly seemed like the foul play was being instigated by the Nuggets players. I am wondering if I am biased to the point of being blind (I sure hope not), but I really didn’t think Harpring was doing anything aside from playing physical and getting under the skin of the person he was guarding.
3. Eddy Najera’s flagrant on Matty: First of all, it wasn’t called a flagrant. Second, the Nuggets announcers continued to call Harpring the instigator. Are you kidding me?? At this point I was waking up the neighbors with the obscenities I was shouting. There could not have been more of a cut-and-dry unsportsmanlike conduct moment than Najera yanking Harpring down on top of him by the jersey, then kicking him off of him. As if Harpring had anywhere else to fall, you idiot announcers.
I really can’t stand the local network announcers for most teams, and I have to watch them on any given night because I rely upon League Pass. Perhaps I am just biased in the way I interpret foul calls, but Boler and Booner seem to be pretty impartial in that they will admit if a Jazz player flopped or if there was a bad call that unfairly favored the Jazz. While we’re on this subject, here are my picks for best and worst announcers:
Best:
FSN Utah (Boler and Booner)
FSN Bay Area (Fitzgerald and Barnett - Barnett gives insightful commentary and both are very impartial in calling the game)
Worst:
FSN Southwest (Followill and Ortegal, for the Dallas Mavericks. These guys are TERRIBLE, especially Ortegal.)
FSN New England (Gorman and Heinsohn, for the Celtics. Gorman is acceptable, it’s Heinsohn that is the worst color guy in the history of commentary)
February 7th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Nice post and great recap. Over at My Utah Jazz we are always commenting about how sick of the Harpring and football we are. Someone needs to get our talking heads an updated media guide with some new information. I would rather hear them talk about their favorite color, or where they spend their vacations, or what they read when they are on the throne. Just please don’t talk about how his uncle played for Navy, his brother at Northwestern, his dad coached Tom Brady, his mom was the conditioning specialist for the Broncos etc.
February 7th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Bolerjack is good, but he’s predictable. I know that announcers have catch-phrases and stuff, but hearing the same information about players over and over drives me nuts. I think I’m going to send a Toyota Tough Truck question and ask if Harpring ever played football.
February 7th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I wish Boler and booner would actually pay attention and keep us informed about the GAME in front of them!
Where are the teams with fouls.
Comment on bad calls or questionable calls.
Can they remember that just because they are talking to a TV audience, once in a while I can’t see the daaum tube, tell me what’s happening with THIS game! They spend too much time droning off about some game two weeks away or trade and draft possibilities, and possibly the color of their ties and undies.
But I do think they show more class than some of the other local broadcasters do with their teams. As Ken mentioned above.
Sorry if I type too much john.
BTW great site! Love all the links to others as well.
GO JAZZ!
February 7th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
RRR, by all means keep posting. I’ve just never had a comment challenge the length of my column :). I think it’s great. Looks forward to hearing more from you.
February 7th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
[…] in a row… 11 in a row at home and 5 in a row on the road. Another road date awaits. Linkage Basketball John finds the thuggery, and questions preferential treatment for the Nuggets. (I can’t complain because I didn’t see the game.) My Utah Jazz takes us through the […]
February 8th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Speaking of Harp. Instead of $50 for every three for Habitat for Humanity, they should give $5 for every Bolerjack football reference on Matt. New Orleans would be rebuilt by now.
Possibly the comment of the month. Nice job BBJ. I’m dying right now.