The Utah Jazz | as seen by Basketball John

The US presidential race is long from decided.  Heck, we’ll have an NBA champion before the Democrats ever decide what they’re going to do.

But the Western Conference playoff picture isn’t decided just quite yet either.  We know most of the teams that are in the playoffs, but the seeding is about as stable as Memphis’ free-throw shooting.

There’s still only 3 1/2 games separating the top 6 teams in the West.  New Orleans has the inside track at the #1 seed but after tonight play 4 of their last 5 on the road.  So while they will probably hang on, anything can happen.

I wrote on my earlier post that never was that the Jazz might be content to stay where they’re at if they couldn’t move up to one of the top seeds.  They don’t want to lose because they want home-court advantage, but they don’t to move up and have to play the Spurs or Lakers in the first and second rounds.  The Jazz aren’t afraid of playing any team but they definitely match up better against the likes of NO, DEN, GS, and HOU.  But if they’re to make the finals, they’ll probably have to go through LA or SA at some point.

Of course a Jazz win tonight would have to be one of the most satisfying of the year, and that includes the Spurs game a few days ago.  The biggest reasons would be,

• We can win on the road.  We’ve done a bit better of it recently, going 10-7 since the end of January.  But we still have that brand of not being able to win on the road.  I wouldn’t say we can’t win on the road but that we’re not very consistent.  A win tonight would go to show that even if we can’t get home-court, we’re still a team to be reckoned with.
• We can secure the Northwest Division title.  Believe it or not, it would be Utah’s only second back-to-back division titles, the first since 1997 and 1998.  That’s another banner to hang in the rafters.
• Our chances of securing home-court in at least the first round would improve.  Right now we’re a game back of Houston.  If we end up seeing them in the first round, I’d much rather not have to go to another game seven on the road.  A side note, are we going to even see any series in the WC go less than 6 games?
• And finally, a win would maybe, just maybe give us a little break from hearing about Chris Paul and the Hornets on every media outlet imaginable.  No Jazz fan has ever said that Chris Paul isn’t a good player and that the Hornets aren’t having a good season.  But criminey, John Madden talks less about Brett Favre when he’s announcing the Packers games.  I would like to adapt a Seinfeld quote when he’s talking about McDonald’s and them telling us how many hamburgers they’ve sold,

“I would love to meet the president of ESPN…
Just to say to him: ‘Look, we all get it.
The Hornets have won a lot of games.
Whatever the hell the number is.
Just put up an image on all your broadcasts: New Orleans Hornets & Chris Paul, they’re doing very well!’
I don’t need to hear about them 24/7.
What is their ultimate goal? To have the rest of the NBA just surrendering voluntarily?
Showing up at the commissioner’s office: “We’d like to forfeit the season.
We see the sign… we realize we have very little chance out there.
We’d like to be a Bobble Head if that’s at all possible.”

If the Jazz do win, what are the odds that it’s the lead story on ESPN?  Notta.  If the Hornets win though, not only is it the lead story, but they have at least two “more-to-comes” during the broadcast and a special Top-Ten plays where we get to see all Hornets plays including a Paul alley-oop to Chandler for the 97th time this season and Chris Paul fighting off ninjas while serving soup to single-mother, homeless cats.

So let’s hope for the sake of Jazz fans’ mental health that they don’t start out slow and let’s have a repeat of the Spurs’ game.

Other blogs,

• Hornets 24/7
• @ The Hive
• My Utah Jazz
• Biased Fan
• FLA

I didn’t get this in to Jim in time for the Hornets website.  But I spent too much time on it not to put it up somewhere.  Interestingly enough, he had Jed from My Utah Jazz answer the questions and the answers were nearly identical.  Crazy.  So read what Jed had to say and then read these below.  Game thread and thoughts coming later today.

PS, I heard Smash or Smush or someone on 1280 the other day from My Utah Jazz talking about the biggest Jazz rivalries and they let him give out his URL.  Pretty good stuff.

Here were mine,

Hornets.com: With only a week remaining in the regular season, what will be the biggest keys to success for the Jazz in the 2008 playoffs?

Basketball John:  Just win baby.  Maybe.  See, here’s the crazy thing.  If the Jazz stay at the number four seed, their playoff bracket includes Phoenix (possibly), Houston, Denver/Golden State, and your Hornets.  And the Jazz have played very well against all of these teams.  If they move up to the three seed, now they’re playing in the same bracket as the Lakers, Spurs, Mavs.  These are the teams that the Jazz (at least the fans) fear the most.  So the goal is to get home-court for the first round, but not move up in the standings.  You don’t want them to lose, but if they don’t move up, it might not be the worst thing. And also, they need to show they can win on the road.  And a win against your Hornets tonight would make a great statement.

Hornets.com: What are the most prominent areas where the Jazz have shown improvement or regression since the 2007 playoffs, when they were a surprise participant in the Western Conference finals?

Basketball John:  I didn’t get time to get to this one.

Hornets.com: Who would you choose as the biggest “X-factor” for Utah in the postseason, a possibly under-the-radar player who will be key for the Jazz?

Basketball John:  He’s not really under the radar, but I really think that as Mehmet Okur goes, so do the Jazz.  When he’s on and hitting threes and taking it to the basket, the Jazz really have as good of a “Big Three” as anyone in the league.  He spreads the defense and opens up lanes for Deron Williams.  And we saw a couple nights ago against the Spurs that he can actually play D and score at the same time.  He’s averaging about four more points, three more rebounds, and 60 points higher on his field goal and three point percentage since the All-Star break.  If he’s on, watch out.

Hornets.com: Utah has one of the largest discrepancy between home and road success in the NBA. Nearly every team is better at home than on the road, but how do you explain the Jazz’s drastic differential?

Basketball John:  If I knew, I’d probably have a job sitting next to Sloan on the bench.  It’s really inexplicable.  A lot of it had to do with their horrid month of December when they went 5-11.  They lost game to Atlanta, Charlotte, and the Heat in which they had leads in the fourth quarter.  But they are actually 10-7 on the road since their January 17th loss at Denver.  So there is improvement.  They may actually be coming around.  And a win tonight would go a long ways to complete the turnaround.

The biggest reason for the discrepancie though I think is that they don’t seem to play defense on the road.  They don’t get as many blocks, steals, turnovers, or defensive rebounds.  A lot of people will say that the Jazz get the calls at home, but they average 23 fouls a game at home, the same as the visiting team gets.   This team can score.  If they play even above average D, they’ll win.

Hornets.com: Overall, what do you think would qualify as a successful postseason for the Jazz? Reaching the West finals again? Advancing past the first round?

Basketball John:  I think in the West, any team will be fortunate to advance past the first round.  I don’t know if there’s a favorite because I think anyone can beat anyone else in a seven game series.  But for the Jazz, having a taste of the Western Conference finals, I can’t imagine anything less being considered a success.  If the Jazz get home court in the first round, advance, and can play either NO, Denver/Golden State, I like their chances.

Hornets.com: Lastly, which player is BasketballJohn.com endorsing in the MVP campaign? Chris Paul, perhaps?

Basketball John: Well I know your readers are going to think it’s my bias that won’t let me endorse Paul for MVP.  He certainly has the numbers.  And I don’t know what’s lead to the recent rash of PGs as MVPs because it’s been very rare before.  Have you looked at John Stockton’s numbers (now we’re going to start that debate) from 1988-1991?  If Stockton had taken more shots, he would have had better stats than Paul has this year but he didn’t even get to within sniffing distance of an MVP.

My pick though is Kevin Garnett.  What he’s done with that Boston team is unbelievable.  After him, Pierce, and Allen, who is there?  He led them to the biggest turnaround in the history of the NBA.  They might get overlooked because they’re in the East, but their record against the West is impressive.  He’s literally changed a franchise.  They were praying for a lottery pick this same time last year.  And now they’re the favorites for the title.  You could argue that Paul has done something similar in New Orleans, but Garnett has been the league’s MVP.