The Jazz have shown a spark in the last two games, however, winning by 3 to a sweet 76ers team is not exactly what we all hoped for. (for those that are slow…there is a hint of sarcasm). The Jazz are looking good in areas, showing some renewed vigor, which could possibly be attributed to a new addition to their team, but they have a few weaknesses I would like to address.

1. Sloppy Ball handling

Recent games have either been thrown away (no pun intended) or nearly given to the opponents due to lazy passes or crappy ball handling in general. If the Jazz continue to stop caring about who they are passing to in the fourth quarter, we have more of the same to keep us entertained in the upcoming weeks.

2. Boozer is the worst defender in the NBA.

It might be a social faux pas to knock on one of the all-stars, but it is driving me NUTS!!! I love the fact that Boozer gets double-doubles night after night, but if he made some blocks, or steals, or didn’t back away from the opposing offense, the games might not be so close down the stretch. There are many times you watch Boozer simply step away from the other team and let them have a clear path to the hoop. Get your game on Booz and play on both ends….

3. Collins is really a Mannequin

See earlier post. Click here.

I really am sorry to be a pessimist at this stage when the Jazz are starting to get some life back into them, but they play Portland (in Oregon) on Saturday, Phoenix and Orlando next week at home. Of course, the Jazz are playing well against the good teams, so hopefully they don’t throw away a gimmie with Indiana in Town on Tuesday.

I love watching the games and will look forward to an exciting week of Jazz basketball.

Memo was looking great and Miles really stepped up in place of Giricek – the team truly gave us something to cheer about.

I look forward to this next stretch of games where eight of the 11 are going to be at home. The Christmas break gave the guys some much needed rest and finally they’re going to have some more consistently available practice time – I hope they use a great deal of it to work on their free throws.

Of all the statements I hope our guys set out to make over the next few weeks – I hope they drive this one home stronger than anything else: The league’s little darlings, the Boston Celtics, are overrated!

I’m going to go off on a tangent now, and I may get fined or banned from the blog, but hopefully everyone who reads will be able to relate. One of the many things that aggrivates me so much about Utah’s scenario over the past month is the fact that while they’ve been traveling over 10,000 miles in a number of weeks because of how the league has scheduled their games – teams like freakin’ Boston haven’t even ventured out west yet! The longest road trip Boston has had to endure thus far has been two short stints of two games a piece – the first to New Jersey and Indiana, and the second to Charolette and Cleveland – and the poor guys only got three days to rest in between both pairs of games.

Meanwhile, Utah has been racking up the frequent flyer miles as the team with the most road games played in the league. Since Nov 14, of the 22 games Utah played – sixteen were on the road – nearly three times as many as they played at home – and virtually all of them were back east. I read that at one point in a 40 day stretch, the Jazz had had time for seven team practices! SEVEN! No wonder they were blowing their free throws and falling short at the end of so many games – they were running out of gas! I don’t care who you are, when you’re traveling that much in such a short amount of time, the road is going to wear on you.

As a fun family activity I suggest you pull up Utah’s and Boston’s schedules and compare them next to each other – it gets a little easier for Utah as far as traveling is concerned – and Boston does have two really fun five game road trips in Feb and March – but the fact of the matter is there’s been a huge conspiracy going on to give Boston the easy start and the Jazz a very high chance of being killed in a plane crash or at least a higher likelihood of losing the majority of their road games while traveling so much.

I’m sure somebody is going to try and point out the fact that every team has to play 82 games and travel to just as many different destinations throughout the season, but the way those games are scheduled can make a huge difference – as Utah and Boston have proven.

I’ve been the first to get on the Jazz’s case for playing such poor basketball in December, but in looking at the schedules – I realize there’s a bit more to it. Fortunately Utah hasn’t been moaning and groaning like some other teams most likely would be if they were in the same scenario. I hope instead that Utah has vowed to stick it to the man. And what better way to do it than by beating the shorts off the league’s favorite little project, the Boston C’s.

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:

1. Jazz shot under 70% from the Free Throw line
2. Less than 50% shooting from the field
3. Less than 50 pts in the paint
4. 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.

The facts are:

1. The Jazz had a substantial lead going into the final minutes of the game and they gave it away…..again’
2. Drives to the basket stopped at roughly 5 minutes to go in the game
3. Brewer turned the ball over, or got stuffed almost 5 times with minutes left in the game
4. The Jazz defense (surprisingly) was again nonexistent in the fourth quarter

The Jazz gave up 31 points in the fourth and went ice cold for 4 minutes in the critical minutes of the game. They lost by 6, had a 12 point lead with 5 minutes to go, I see that as a total team breakdown in an 18 point swing for a loss – PATHETIC!!! The consistent losses are pathetic and the Jazz don’t exactly have an easy way out tonight or tomorrow night. My initial predictions to this road trip were 3-1 and we’ll be absolutely lucky to have a 1-3 out of it. I don’t believe they’ll win tonight or tomorrow night, and they get to play the Mavs at home on Wednesday. Let’s face it Jazz fans….we could be looking at another great losing streak by the Jazz.

What’s with Giricek – is he the next Kirilenko? Is Okur ever going to come back, and would that even make a difference? I do believe (in response to an earlier post) that Collins is in fact a mannequin….one that lays on his back….

Explanation of the image – the look of all Jazz fans as they see the team throw away another winnable game…..

MAKE YOUR FREE THROWS!!!

In the last few minutes of the game, the Jazz were driving to the basket and getting to the Free Throw line. But who cares? The game was on the line – both Boozer and Williams were struggling from the line, only making 1 for 2 time and time again. Had they just made a few more free throws, the game may have had an alternate ending as it came down to the wire.

These are the things I noticed throughout the game, they may not be comprehensive and you might have spotted something different. My predictions are that Jazz win tonight by 10+. Rock On!

1. Monday @ Atlanta
2. Wednesday @ Charlotte
3. Friday @ Orlando
4. Saturday @ Miami

With Mehmet still battling injuries, the Jazz will have to rely on the unreliable Collins or the untested Fesenko for center. They could always put in my favorite, Millsap, but I doubt they will do so for all four games.

Keys to Victory:

1. Williams must pick up his shot – with Mehmet out, Williams’ shot has struggled and he has not be a huge contributor o the Jazz Offense
2. Boozer needs to play defense – his offense and rebounding are fantastic, but he lets people blow past him nearly every play and can’t block to save his life.
3. Backup Point Guard needs to step up – Williams can’t play 48 minutes and there needs to be one of the many backups that steps up and plays to his (or her somedays) potential.
4. Commit to 4 periods of play – all too often the Jazz get a lead in the first 3 quarters and let it slide at the end. The Jazz cannot win the games if they can’t finish.

My predictions are 3 W and 1 L. The loss will come either in Orlando or Miami, but they will beat 1 of those two teams. All games will be close (within 10 points) and should be a good week of Jazz Basketball.

1. Runs very slowly and like a robot. If I were a mannequin I wouldn’t be fast at all and my body wouldn’t look smooth when I ran.

2. Falls over when bumped. Mannequins get knocked over all the time. Collins falls over when the wind blows in an attempt to get a charge called.

3. Can’t catch a pass. Mannequins are notorious for having terrible hands and not being able to catch. If you haven’t found this out yet, then play catch with a mannequin and see how they do.

4. Nobody plays defense on him. Collins gets the ball and teams treat him like the plague. They are praying for him to shoot it. Mannequins aren’t good shooters at all.

5. He can’t jump. Literally I don’t think that Collins can jump. Mannequins are horrible jumpers. Collins gets a rebound a game or so and that’s because the guy running the remote control on him gets lucky.

As you can see I’ve clearly proven that Jarron Collins is indeed a mannequin. You will start to notice that some other NBA players might be mannequins also and together we can blow the lid on this thing. I’ve had similar thoughts about Jason Collins on the Nets and Michael Doleac.

The storm hit the Salt Lake valley December 7-9th and since then the Jazz haven’t won a game. More disturbing is that they hadn’t won the game prior to the storm. Since the storm, the Jazz have shot less than 50% from the field. It has iced at least one starter per game. An injury has now hit the Jazz with Okur being out with shoulder pains (added to his random back spasms).

The game in Portland has now been preceded by another storm in Salt Lake. Does this mean they will be railed upon yet again by an inferior team? I really hope not as the Jazz are one of the contenders of the title this year, if they can utilize their all-star quality talent and play some defense.

Please comment and let me know if you see any other startling correlations with the recent weather in Salt Lake and the lack of performance by our Jazz….

I just don’t like the fact that the Jazz bench was able to get the 18 point lead down to 4, and then when the starters come back in they can’t close the gap and lead our team to a win AT HOME! I guess my comparison of the Jazz to Rosie O’Donnell in an earlier post is absolutely true, which also makes me sick.I must wonder if we might see Andrei Kirilinko in emotional situations this week that he cannot bear. At this point, I don’t know what else to say….someone please help the Jazz!

First of all, let’s define what a franchise player is. It’s basically what you figure one to be, but wikipedia describes a franchise player as such:

“Franchise players have some of the following specific characteristics:

• They are signed to lucrative, multi-year contracts.
• They may be promoted as the “face of the franchise”: signing local and national endorsement deals, making appearances in television commercials, and selling team jerseys to consumers in the team’s fan base.“

So, before we get the opinions rolling here just keep this in mind as well: “The misnomer that a franchise player is only “the best player on a team” disregards the fact that an inordinately bad team will undoubtedly still employ a player with superior skills, relative to his team. However, such a player could be so bad in comparison to players at-large that labeling such a player as a franchise player would be inappropriate.” Again, thank you wikipedia.