While I was watching the game today (the reason for the late recap), I realized that these last six games are pretty much a six-game playoff series for the Jazz. They’re going to be playing SA, DAL, HOU, DEN, and NO. I don’t think any other potential playoff teams in the West have the schedule against playoff teams that Utah does.

They’re well on their way to a series sweep (six games in this case) as they came out the victor of a pretty ugly game. Pretty if you’re the Jazz, ugly if you’re the Spurs. Have you ever checked the box score of a game you’ve missed, in any sport, found your team’s score first and cringed? If you were to come upon the 90 the Jazz scored, you would have almost immediately thought that they got blown out. Instead, they held the Spurs to a middle-school girl’s basketball-like score of 64.

What was really bizarre was that the Spurs were only down 9 to start the fourth. In the NBA, that’s nothing. But after a oop to AK from Deron, and a lay-up from Harpring (more on Harps lay-ups), the Spurs called timeout and we never saw the starting team again. That’s only 13 points with 11 1/2 minutes to go. In fact, we didn’t see Duncan the last 15 minutes of the game. Parker didn’t play the entire fourth either. And once the Spurs were down 20 with about 9 minutes to go, we didn’t see Ginobili. If they took that timeout when they went down 13 to slow momentum, shouldn’t we have seen a quick return of Parker and Duncan to see if they couldn’t get back into it? Instead, the Jazz scored 7 straight more points and the game was over.

I’m not complaining though. After an ugly, ugly first quarter, the Jazz turned it on and turned a 8-point deficit into a two point lead at the half. And from there they never looked back. The Jazz scored 68 points (we’ve scored more in a half) in the final three quarters to the Spurs’ measly 40. And they might not have have broken 60 for the game had Stoudemire not scored all of their 9, yes 9 points in the fourth quarter.

I wrote back in TWolves recap that we need the Memo we all know to be able to have any chance in the playoffs. He was on again tonight putting up 17 & 16 with 3-5 from downtown. And now he has no excuse about disappearing in the playoffs. Last year he stated it was hard to focus on his offense when he was trying to play good D. Well last night he held Duncan to 15 and frustrated him most of the night. Boozer also played well on Timmy, giving him all kinds of fits. And is there anything more pathetic than seeing Duncan flail with every shot attempt to try to draw a foul? Is that what his game is now? We saw a lot of pushing and even some words being exchanged. Boozer hardly speaks crap to anyone unless he’s he trying to coax a ball to go in the hoop after a foul so he can scream “And-1!” I like seeing him with a little attitude. You know, we really don’t have that bad-boy type on our team.

What kept the Jazz close in the first part of the game was three ball. That’s also one of the biggest reasons they were able to put the game away. They shot 10-19 for 53% (better than their overall percentage of just 41%). They all came from the usual suspects; Deron & Price had 2, Memo scored 3, with KK, Miles, and AK nailing one each. And recent games aside, the Jazz place a crazy 26th in the league in the number of attempted threes. They’ve hoisted only 1013 attempts while the Warriors have attempted almost twice that amount. But they are fifth in the league in 3-point shooting percentage. And yet they are still the league’s highest-rated offense.

Deron, despite the blowout, played 42 minutes and had 16 & 11. He should have had 14 assists if Harpring hadn’t blown three lay-ups and a put-back off one of those missed lay-ups. We should start calling him Mrs. Harpring because he misses (did you get that?) all those lay-ups. Booze was solid with 16 & 7. KK gave us 11 with his brothers in attendance. AK had 10 and played great D on Manu. The Manuflop only had 8 points.

So we got what we needed out of this six-game “series” with a win over the Spurs. That kind of confidence and mo is needed as we go into Tuesday’s game against the New Orleans Pauls. I have to say this game is probably amongst my most anticipated for the year; even more so than the Feb 4th game against the same team. I don’t think anything could bring me more joy this regular season than to have the Jazz walk into the Hive and shut the media up with a win. And while having Deron embarrass Paul again would be great, it would be the icing on the cake of a W. A loss at home against the Jazz and Williams would put a serious cramp in the CP3 MVP bandwagon. I don’t know when the voting ends, but I would think some might be holding their vote to see how this game plays out. But perhaps even more importantly, the Jazz would go to 2-0 on the trip and would have a good chance to to move up while other teams in the West cancel each other out.

We’re also just a win or GS loss from clinching a playoff spot. And the magic number for clinching the division is three.

It’s a great time to be a Jazz fan.

Other notes,

• No videos. I didn’t get home in time to record any.
• I still don’t want to see the Spurs in the playoffs.  That’s usually when they work their magic.  And by magic, I mean the little elves with whistles that make sure the Spurs get  the calls.
• Bolerism of the night: After Parker got the loose ball and had a breakaway basket, Boler states, “A little showtime from Parker” as he lays it up.
• Boonerism of the night: I think he was talking about Memo, I’m not sure. But he said basically that he was a better shooter from the three-point line than the two-point line? Where exactly is that two-point line?
• AK getting the bunny ears from his wife. That’s translates to all languages.
• Refs made some terrible calls once again, but it was a relatively foul-free night. I couldn’t imagine what the game would have been like with a ton of fouls.
• Spurs only had 5 offensive boards. Huge reason for the Jazz win.
• Manu doesn’t know how to play D unless he can flop (same as Collins). Here he puts his shoulder into Deron’s face but no call,
• They also only had 8 assists as a team. Parker had 17 but only four assists. No one else had more than 1.
• He’s cooled off a bit lately, but after the All-Star break, Duncan has been shooting close to 80% from the free-throw line. Crazy.
• Dumbest call of the night. After a loose ball, AK jumped on it and was on his hands and knees. Finley jumped on him, didn’t even touch the ball really, and they called a jump. And Sloan had been trying to call a timeout the entire time.
• Duncan’s turned into a hot-head. I think it would be really easy to get to him. And surprisingly we saw very little of Collins. And that wasn’t until Tim was out of the game.
• Can the Jazz be the most chameleon-like team in the league? They play to whatever level or style the other team is playing. Whether it’s running and gunning with the Warriors or playing in 90-64 defensive games, the Jazz just seem to blend in with the other team’s style.
• And I think Danielle might be on to something. I haven’ heard MVP chants at all for Deron before last night’s game. Maybe my stats don’t indicate just how many people are reading BBJ.
• And finally, for your latest Deron Dis, I give you ESPN’s the Daily Dime again. Marc Stein gives us his All-NBA teams, 1st through 3rd. And Deron is barely a footnote. We’re not going to debate Williams/Paul. But there’s no way Deron shouldn’t be second team. He should be above Nash and Manu. And third should be the lowest. And if you read the comments, the fans are ticked again. I’m sure most are Jazz/Illinois fans, but there are some from Spurs & Lakers fans as well. We’ll see if anything changes when he schools all of them in the playoffs.

Other blogs,

• FLA
• Ross Siler
• Biased Fan
• And I’ll get Danielle’s recap up in a bit.