Game 6 - Final Thoughts

Excellent play by the Jazz in the second half to come back and actually turn this into a game, but all I kept thinking was "where was this in the first half?"

-Deron was a beast, hard to believe he's only been in the league for 3 years. Look for lots of amazing stuff from this guy in the future.

-Carlos struggles yet again.

-Brewer had a fantastic 3rd quarter, love to see that kind of intensity and hustle out of him.

-The combo of Harpring and Millsap were amazing at hitting the boards there at the end of the game, would've liked to have seen that in the first half as well.

-Yes there were a few bad calls again, but they didn't really matter or come close to deciding the game, as both Brandon and I have said, this game was lost in the first quarter.

-I've heard some people complain about Sloan not calling a time out after the Fisher FT miss. Personally I think that was a great call to just turn and push it. You got a pretty decent look for Okur out of it, and you probably wouldn't have gotten the offensive rebound as cleanly if the defense had time to set up after the time out... Deron's 3 was literally this close to going in...

All-in-All, it was a hard fought series, and I still can't believe there wasn't a single lead change in all 6 games. It's depressing, for sure, but let's just hope this is more experience this young team can build upon....

Gotta figure out what to do with the rest of my May though. Guess it's time to start pulling for KG.

Game 6 Halftime Thoughts

Wow... This is fugly.

Nobody to blame but our team. The refs are doing their jobs and I feel the calls have been fair. I will put a little blame on Boozer and Deron because they look HORRIBLE. Deron is really letting all Jazz fans down by not being aggressive enough. I thought this guy would be more of a leader down the stretch but haven't seen it. We all know Boozer's a choke, and I heard from a source that he is having marital issues, but that could be totally false. But could def effect his game if true.

And Jerry... What are you doing? Zone defense? Taking out Korver to bring in Miles???!?!? Have you gone mad?!? Miles got into the game and forgot that we had other players on the court. Also, Sasha Vuabitch is killing us thanks to your defense plan. Thanks Jerry. Oh and one other thing, thanks for calling so many timeouts so we can re-group and recover.

In my opinion, this game was over from early in the first quarter. Deron better show up in the second half or this will be even uglier.

A Quick Post Out Of Pure Frustration

I don't like complaining about officiating, but with 5:40 left in game 5 I have been truly frustrated with the way this fourth quarter has been called... Maybe this is just my Jazz colored glasses, I don't know - but to me, it feels like every time anyone in a Jazz uniform has just been raped down low, but any time a Laker is so much breathed on, out come the whistles.

Here's hoping the Jazz can turn it around in this quarter...

Sticking it to Those "Glass Half Empty" Guys.

I know a lot of people don't like him too much, but I've always enjoyed listening to local sports radio personality David Locke. I'm not smart enough to be quite the stats junkie he is, and sometimes find myself very "nerdily" glued to the radio dissecting the numbers and opinions he spouts out. So I couldn't help but greatly enjoy and wish to share with you all his rant following a handful of callers complaining about various "problems" the Jazz had in their Game 4 victory.

Listen to it here.

I have to agree with him in many of the rantastic points he made there. Sometimes us Jazz fans (myself certainly included) get a little too caught up in nitpicking certain aspects of their play, we don't take enough time to truly appreciate what an awesome game/season/series/performance by _____/whatever, we just witnessed....

We've Got Ourselves a Series.

Well, I think I've finally recovered from Game 4. Wow. All I can say, is wow. That was easily one of the greatest games in Jazz history. It basically had it all.

To start, I'm going to have to reiterate my school pride biased comment from my last post. Ronnie Price is the freaking man. The stitches (for the record, I don't think that was a flagrant 2), that incredible twisting reverse, and of course, that block on Walton. I can't really decide what was the best part of that play. The fact that everyone (but Ronnie) thought that was an automatic 2 points for the Lakers, the fact that it was Ronnie Price skying for the block, the fact it was on Bill's son, or the image of Ronnie standing there staring down a prostrated Luke Walton.

I really don't have a ton to say about the game other than once the final horn sounded, that was a rush of relief the likes of which I hadn't felt in quite some time. Once Derek Fisher went on his one-man spree, my nerves were all across the board as it looked like yet another Jazz collapse. In a game that they had no business losing, they were letting the Lakers climb right back into it. So when they sucked it up in OT, I finally breathed again.


Deron was amazing. This is the type of play I'd been looking for from him, every time he had the ball in his hands, you just felt like something good was going to happen. I still can't figure how he let Fish block that potential game winner like that, but in light of the final score, I'll give him a pass on that one. Dancing the half court line, the alley-oops, still dominating from behind the 3 point line, the fade away at the end of the fourth, the free throws in OT... Sore back or not, he outplayed the MVP. Even as I was watching the game, his performance felt, for lack of a better word, timeless.

Carlos went missing again. He played slightly better in the second half, but after his "reemergence" in game 3 I really expected him to come out with much more fire than we saw. The Jazz really need him to play better than he did in game 4 if they hope to steal a game in LA.

The bench was fantastic. I think a lot of us are looking for Korver to hit the 3 with the same consistency as we saw in the regular season, but he sure made a couple great plays (that diving save being chief among them), and he's got my personal favorite quote of the playoffs thus far (this is from today's shoot-around, feel free to skip to a little over the half-way point to get to the best part of the interview. Korver's hatred for Sasha Vujacic has him on my "awesome list" - the very last thing he says is the actual "quote of the day" of which I spoke)

Game 5 is going to be very interesting. I could see a fired up Jazz team coming out and sticking close through the whole game, at which point it could be anyone's game in the end - and that is the scenario I fully expect.... However, I wouldn't be shocked if the Jazz continued their Staples Center struggles. In either case, we've now got ourselves a real exciting series on our hands here.

(Extremely Belated) Quick Thoughts About Game 3

We here at JazzHype were lucky enough to be in attendance for Game 3, and as a result, neither of us were really able to get around to commenting on the game.

Here are a few quick thoughts a mere handful of hours before Game 4 tips off:

-Boozer is back! (and hopefully here to stay)

-Deron is one tough S.O.B.

-I hate Phil Jackson.

-Great Choice going back to the Blue after the terrible failed experiment at a "white-out" at ESA

-Energy Solutions Arena is the worst name for any arena in the NBA. I defy you to find one that sucks more.

-The name might suck, but the crowd still dominates. What an atmosphere.

-I hate Phil Jackson.

-I've never quite warmed up to Bolerjack's "Money" nickname for Okur, but Mehmet was just that in game 3. Would've liked to have seen more shots out of him.

-Pau Gasol needs to shut up.

-LA has no chance of out-rebounding the Jazz. Continue exploiting that.

-This ended up being a lot closer than it should have been, I couldn't help but feel like every time the Jazz were about to push the lead out of reach we started hearing lots of whistles, and watching lots of the infamous Dick Bavetta dance moves.

-I love Ronnie Price's hustle. UV pride!

-We're only one more game like that away from a real series here.

Game 4 here we come! (oh and I also hate Phil Jackson. A lot.)

Let the Theories Begin.

Thanks to basketballjohn for turning me towards this article. I mentioned the FT discrepancy earlier, but when the LA Times writes an article about what all of us are thinking but not really saying, I couldn't help but chuckle. In a sad hopeless kind of way...

There are lots of reasons the Jazz lost games 1 and 2, but those 27 extra free throws certainly didn't help.

check it out at:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/lakers/la-sp-simers8-2008may08,0,1530531.column