The last road trip was a bust for the Jazz going 1-3 against teams that should have all be beaten. Now, wait a minute…should have beaten, why are we all stuck saying those words? If they should have beaten the teams, why didn’t they? Is it true that maybe they SHOULDN’T have beaten them and we are all idiots for thinking otherwise? More thoughts on that later….
Seriously though, the Jazz are nearly a .500 team with 15 wins and 14 losses. They have removed themselves from a playoff berth and if they don’t win tonight will end up being a team with a record of .500. For a team that appeared to have so much talent at the beginning of the season now appears to show their inexperience and lack of desire to finish teams off in the final minutes. The loss at Miami was unfortunate as a few of the underdogs rallied the team in the last few minutes to give the Jazz a chance at winning (Miles with two 3-pointers). We had the right defense against D.Wade, and kudos to him for nailing a tough shot at the buzzer to beat the Jazz.
Although unfortunate, the loss in Miami did show a spark in the Jazz offense scoring nearly 40 points in the fourth quarter. What plagued them? I see three ongoing trends with the Jazz when they lose:
- Jazz shot under 70% from the Free Throw line
- Less than 50% shooting from the field
- Less than 50 pts in the paint
- Under 30% shooting the 3-point shot
The free throw line is killing the Jazz. ‘Gimme’ points are not the case with the Jazz, if you want to beat ‘em, foul them and make them hit the free throws. Consistently, starters for the Jazz are making 1 out of 2 when the points mean the difference between a win and a loss. The Jazz typically lose when they should less than 50% from the field as well as have low points in the paint. The two are highly correlated as when they aren’t driving to the basket and getting high-percentage shots, they settle for an outside shot and nobody this year has been consistent (even Mehmet when he was playing). If the shots aren’t falling from outside the paint, everyone can jam up the lanes and keep you out of the paint. It might be that this is due to Mehmet not playing as he does have the ability to spread the defense out, but you can’t rely on one player to make your offense strong.
What does this all boil down to? The Jazz just may be a .500 team this year. Let’s face it, the whines and complaints of “We could have, should have, etc.” are lame. The blaming of the officiating don’t fly anymore. The Jazz have had a few injuries/absences from key players (Okur and Harpring) and the team is off kilter. Just hope that those two players get healthy again so we can potentially see the Jazz back up to the level of playing we got used to at the first of the season. If they don’t get healthy soon, I’d love to see more Milsap, Fesenko, Miles and even Morris Almond. Let’s see less of Hart, Price, the mannequin Collins and who knows what’s going to go on with Giricek.
The Jazz can win tonight, they can win any game, but let’s see what happens against a Texan team from Dallas.
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calm down. 82 games is a long season. so what if they are a .500 team right now. They haven’t been at full strength and really miss Okur on the court. Let’s just get everyone healthy. Is this team going to win a title? No, but they are a top 5 team in the West and when all is said and done they’ll be there. You don’t want to face the Jazz in the playoffs.