The Utah Jazz | as seen by Basketball John

Just a few notes from the first half:

• Good to see Boozer back.  He’s got 17.
• Bad news, Martin is lighting them up for 22.
• Jerry stuck to his word.  Hart didn’t lose his job to an injury.  But he’s definitely lost it to Price now.  The Jazz were down 13 before they went on a 14-2 run.  The biggest  reason was Price’s two threes and two steals.
• Harpring is guarding Miller?  Wow.  He had a sweet steal on him where he just ripped it out of his hands and went in for the dunk.
• Millsap is getting abused.  He got stitches from Moore and got hit upside the head inadvertently by Price.
• Refs are idiots.  The Kings’ Garcia was driving baseline and ran into Memo.  He got called for the turnover for stepping out of bounds.  I watched the replay on my DVR and he was a foot away from the line.

This was starting to look like a game where the Kings hit everything they threw up.  But the Jazz, behind some great D to end the 2nd quarter, got back to 1.  We’ll see how it translates to the rest of the game.

Looks like we’ll be without Brewer tonight.  That was expected.  I think they just might keep him out the last couple games before the All-star break as well.  Doesn’t sound like it’s going to heal soon.  I don’t know if it will keep him out the Soph/Rookie game.

CJ will get the start.  Sloan will likely play him like he has Brewer since Korver has come.  We’ll see him in the first and third while KK plays the second and fourth.  Of course with Sloan’s quick trigger, we could see a lot more Korver.

The Kings could also be without Brad Miller tonight.  He gashed open his finger while doing dishes.  I’ve done the same.  I’ve also sliced open my leg while on some glass in the garbage while taking it out.   Lesson learned?  Men aren’t suppose to do chores.

And of course, we’ll see the second round of Artest/Harpring.  I don’t expect anything less physical than our last game.  We’ll have to see if Artest take himself out of this game as well.  He’s admitted recently that he thinks the Kings are better without him.  There are dozens of trade rumors concerning him, including one where he ends up in Denver.  Could you imagine?  Artest, Melo, Martin, and Iverson?  Wouldn’t Stern have to step in at that point and veto the trade?  The only thing that would be missing would be having Mike Tyson as the conditioning coach.  And they thought that the JailBlazers of old were bad.

Although we don’t play well in Sacramento traditionally, the Jazz have to have a lot of confidence coming off their win in Denver.  And if Brad Miller isn’t playing, they’ll dominate the glass.   They should win this by 6.

• Biased Fan
• My Utah Jazz
• SacTown Royalty
• JazzFanz

A preview of tonight King’s game coming in a bit. Here’s my latest on HoopsVibe:

In this week’s weekly conversation with Larry H Miller, local sports jockey David Locke was talking to the Jazz owner about the trade that landed Shaq in Phoenix. As you may know, there was a lot of talk before the beginning of the season to swap Andrei Kirilenko for Shawn Marion.

Miller revealed that Steve Kerr offered the same players, Marcus Banks and Marion for Kirilenko. Miller’s reason for the Jazz declining the trade surprised me a bit. Obviously, having to take on Banks and his twenty million didn’t make sense for a team that already had three point guards.

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