The Utah Jazz | as seen by Basketball John

First of all, if you were at the game last night, throw away your white t-shirts.  away I did with mine and the Jazz immediately scored two threes at the end of the game, got a turnover and had a chance to win it.  The things are cursed.

With the exception of Deron Williams, the white jerseys of the Jazz gave them about as much basketball ability as the people wearing white tees in the stands.  The tees must have sucked out the power out of the player’s jerseys.  And if you don’t believe me about the power of the white jersey, just remember the game in Boston where the Cs chose to wear their green unis and got beat by the Jazz who were in white.  And one more note about the white tees.  We’re already stereotyped as being one of the whitest places in the nation.  Do we need to don white tees to remind everyone?  Bring back True Blue!

So my streak is over.  I can no longer say I’ve never seen the Jazz lose in person.  Losing a game is a lot tougher when you’re with a crowd of 20,000.  You have to be somewhat civil.  If you’re at home watching, you can let whatever expletives you want fly.  The worst part about watching a loss in person is that there are the few fans of the opposing team that are cheering afterwards and you have to do everything within your power from pushing them down the steep steps of the upper bowl.

And maybe it was me that jinxed things.  I had a moment in the men’s room with David James before the game started.  Not a Larry Craig moment.  We were the only ones in there and I at least waited until he was washing his hands before bugging him.  I was trying to think of something to say that would make me look look intelligent.  So while we were washing hands (not each others), I said, “What’s the line tonight?”  I was star struck by DJ for crying out loud.  What a lame question.  He did answer back quickly with “8 1/2.”  We exchanged a couple more small-talk phrases before I left the conversation awkwardly.  And by awkwardly I mean I just walked out of the men’s room.

Deron carried the team in the first half with 21 points.  No one else could find the bottom of the basket.  They managed to tie it at 44 going into the half when it felt like we were down 20.  They built a 6-point lead after four but then pulled a T-Mac in the fourth and disappeared.  End despite how poorly they played, they still had a chance to win in the closing second with Deron driving to the hoop only down 1.  I can’t think of anyone else I want taking that shot.  There were a couple of people open.  But hand it to Houston for playing tough D again to finish the game.

The Jazz did themselves in of course by missing 13 of their 33 free-throws.  They had 11 more attempts than the Rockets and blew the game.  There were no other factors.  Yes, the refs sucked again.  I’ll defer to Biased for commentary on the suckiest refs in the playoffs.  I’ve never seen though where one ref controlled the game so much.  He overrode two calls that would have been in Utah’s favor.  And he called two continuation fouls for the Rockets where one player was shooting and someone else was fouled.  So they got the and-1 with a different player shooting the free-throw.  Have there been two of those called all year?  In the entire league?  He was truly awful.  But the calls were bad both ways.

It’s no time to panic.  We have to go back to Houston now and this series is going to go longer than it should have.  Nobody outside of Houston expected Alston to have the game he had.  And if one other Jazz man had a decent game, we would have pulled it out.  I’m a big fan or Korver, but I would like to see more Brewer.  He played well but just broke 30 minutes. I would say cut back Harp’s minutes, but he was the only one that played decent while he was in there.

And if I’m Sloan, nobody leaves practice until they make 20 straight free-throws.  And you have to run 5 ladders for everyone you miss in a game.

Other notes,

• No videos as I wasn’t home in time to get any
• No male should be wearing a Korver jersey.
• Great chants of “Tracy’s tired!”  And he was.  He missed a couple of big free throws and a layup.  “Houston sucks!” chants resulted in a Alston three.  That worked just as well as the “Utah sucks” chants in Houston.

Other blogs,

• My Utah Jazz
• FLA, and again, and one more time
• Ross Siler
• The Dream Shake