WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
More critically, though, the Utah Jazz took care of business at home, and put to bed a tired team that is in the dreadful situation of being bereft of bench depth due to injuries, and in the middle game of 3 games in 3 nights. We’ve been on the opposite side of these games before, even in the Stockton to Malone years. It was nice, for once, to see our bench guys going out there having fun. The big showdown between Blake Griffin and Paul Millsap finished in a one-sided, clear, decision in favor of Paul. He had 20 points off of a very hyper efficient 7/11 shooting. Blake had a number of nice dunks, but did most of his damage from outside of the paint – though he was baited into taking more of that shot than he perhaps should have tonight. Blake finished with 10 points off of 12 shots.
While it was only natural to hype of the match-up between these two guys; however, this wasn’t a one on one game. This was a match up between two hopeful Western Conference playoff teams. The Jazz put the clamps down, as the Clippers shot only 36.5 fg% -- I guess their better defense beat out the Clippers stunning offense. Of course, one needs to recognize that the Clippers were down some pretty amazing players. That said, we know what that’s like as well. No team is going to go easy on you when you are hurting. For once it was nice to see the Jazz not ‘go easy’ on someone.
By the way . . . Jeremy Evans is out of this world. It’s the only explanation which satisfies why he’s so disdainful of our Earth’s law of gravity.
More coverage to come – including really nerdy stats (that included who is consistently putting in work in the game threads) – all in one place, SLCDUNK.
Also please be gracious and respectful if you make the trip to the Clippers' blogs. They are good people and good fans.
0 recs | 38 comments
100% Agree
With your first and last statements.
Robert_Loblaw - January 17, 2012
no ESPN highlights
No surprise there.
Can’t hate Clippers, they have Eisley as a coach.
KaBar6 - January 17, 2012 via iPhone app
online either
lame——- such an easy lead in too, “lob city goes to Salt Lake City only to find….lob city” or some lame pun on it. (I haven’t read the game thread, surely someone made a play on that already)
But yes, the national media cares nothing for SLC. If CP3 had played, they would have shown some Griffith dunk, but not the half-court alley oop to Evans.
MTN - January 17, 2012
ah, we'll get to see some
But I bet it will last under a minute.
KaBar6 - January 17, 2012 via iPhone app
can anybody make a dunk remix of tonights game
that would make me smile during the walk into mordor (February/March)
gubihero - January 17, 2012
Just watched 4th quarter dvr'd
AWESOME. I love our scrubs.
MTN - January 17, 2012
lame
What a lame game. Watching players have fun and seeing the team blow out a high powered potential final 4 in the West team. We should DEF be tanking for some pick so we can do this in 5 years. I’ll e-mail Corbin to start playing rookies more and losing games to make it happen, winning is pretty boring…
EvilG - January 17, 2012
+82
MTN - January 17, 2012
Ah, the angry comments shoving crow into my face
Yucca Man - January 17, 2012
I didn't see it as angry. More like sarcastic and playfully mocking. Sardonic, if you will.
JazzHype - January 18, 2012
Yes, you chose much better adjectives than me here
I was trying to be a bit sardonic too.
Yucca Man - January 18, 2012
I think you come across as feeling bitter and offended way more often than you intend to.
I’m trying to train myself to take that into account with your posts.
And as a bonus since you’re a teacher, I believe the correct usage here would be “I” rather than “me”.
JazzHype - January 19, 2012
weak sauce
That didn’t highlight ANYTHING.
KaBar6 - January 17, 2012 via iPhone app
From the Clips Nation recap:
Prove it.
Shums - January 17, 2012
i know, we were missing 2 players 2
granted howard and favors don’t really equal paul, but that’s what happens with a glass cannon like paul anyway.
gubihero - January 17, 2012
really?
Coming from a fair weather fan base. what’s the record, 42-1 now? What a joke, and to think we wanted to be nice to them, and after reading something like that? They are just turning in to the Lakeshow.
KaBar6 - January 17, 2012
Also, Mormon jokes. YAY.
Shums - January 17, 2012
saw those
Very bitter and unclassy. But when your team is getting blown out by 30 points you can expect some nasty comments
G Note - January 17, 2012
Clipper fans are anything but "fair weather"
Newton Pham - January 17, 2012
I have to agree with the Clips fans here
How can they possibly be called Fair Weather?
There may be a bunch of band-waggoneers that join the crew because of Chris Paul + Blake Griffin = lots of fun, but the dudes were talking about the Benoit Benjamin years in their game thread.
That’s hardcore.
Yucca Man - January 17, 2012
my bad
On the fair weather comment. I’m talking about the fans that are all of a sudden Clips fans. Staples Center could never be filled, and now that it is, they think they’re the best. Then the comment about Clips being in a higher class. Give me a frickin break. We’ve played back to backs, and we have done just fine, Clips were gassed out by the end of the third quarter. Just goes to show how much the bench really matters.
KaBar6 - January 18, 2012 via iPhone app
Those are more like bandwagon fans, not fair weather, in my opinion.
If the Jazz get good again, they’ll get a whole bunch of bandwagon fans too. But some of the bandwagon fans become hardcore fans, as witnessed by the stories shared in the comments of the Meet the new SLC Dunk Parks & Rec Characters post or whatever it was called.
If Denver weren’t a sworn enemy to the Jazz, I would have been a bandwagon fan last year. Their style of play suited me and I loved their ability to recover from the ‘Melo trade. Alas, I can’t really root for Denver. Just like I can’t really root for Portland.
JazzHype - January 18, 2012
To be fair, I don't necessarily agree and I'm a Clipper fan.
It’s more “debatable” than it is “without question”
Newton Pham - January 17, 2012
yeah, it's all good, didn't mean to make too big a deal.
Hard to say who’s better with both teams missing guys.
Thanks for stopping by!
Shums - January 18, 2012
lol
whatever helps them sleep at night…
i have no doubt they are a much better team with cp3 and mo, but that doesnt change the fact that their bench is terrible and they play awful defense
PMoney - January 18, 2012
Bottom line, Clippers played lazy, let the game get out of hand early and knew that a recovery would be highly unlikely.
They were just plain beat.
Newton Pham - January 17, 2012
What an awesome game, and Jeremy Evans needs to come in WHENEVER we build some momentum
He could be the key to putting games out of reach with big, awesome exclamation jams. Anyway, our depth is so huge, especially this year. I think the fact that we can and will run every active player on the roster in some sort of significant minutes from time to time this year really will give our development a big boost, while allowing us to (for now) remain competitive. I think…gulp…KOC may have been onto something. I mean, when you have chemistry, an obvious mindset change to an effort/defensive focused one (even on the road against a quality opponent Sunday)…why do we need two more lottery picks if this effort and chemistry sustain themselves? I don’t mean to jump the gun or anything (because of the weak schedule so far), but what I’m seeing is a team full of selfless players – what else can we ask for these days? I find it interesting that we turned over almost the entire organization (sans executives and assistants) in two years, and suddenly we play – quite noticeably – much harder and with much more competitive edge. That’s a bigger sign of a good future than any advanced metric will get us, IMO.
Wow, so long. Sorry. Got me on a rant! :)
Last unsolicited observation: Evans with extended minutes seemed to really kind of crunch our momentum/flow when we’d have to play the half-court game (on either end, although his help side blocks were beauties). He’s like AK in that way I think, and maybe that’s an obvious point but it still kind of helps me cope with him being the odd man out in the rotation. Jeremy, to me, seems like he was created for the chaotic times when you’re pushing the tempo like maniacs and draw opponents into speeding up with you (or vice versa) – chaotic possessions and sequences are where Jeremy’s best. In a WCF though, I’m not sure he can be played after a certain point in a playoff setting. Not yet, at least.
Rant over. I love this team. Quickly becoming one of my favorite Jazz squads I’ve watched.
3 in the Key - January 18, 2012
Biggest difference to this early season success compared to last years is that we are gaining leads early and keeping them. Last year in order to gain our early success we would come out with a turn in the first two quarters and go down by 10+ and then have to mount amazing comebacks to get our early success. That alone make me believe we can sustain this success.
Rion Hanson - January 18, 2012
excellent point
starters would get us in a hole, watson/price line up would play tough defense, and try to get easy baskets, rinse, repeat.
AllThatJazzBasketball - January 18, 2012
I was thinking this same thing.
It makes it feel like there is more to these wins when they aren’t falling behind a lot everygame.
BobbyD31 - January 18, 2012
I can't wait for this team to get out on an actual road trip. We will learn a lot about this team then.
They just need to show me they can do all of this on the road against even decent teams during a trip. I was pleasantly surprised by the Denver win, but I want to see a couple more times. We haven’t had one road trip yet.
clarkpojo - January 18, 2012
This
TurboJazz224 - January 18, 2012
I should have just +1'd this.
Looking forward to the Jan 27 @DAL game too, pre-road trip.
JazzHype - January 18, 2012
Yep. I made this comment to a coworker this morning.
We’ll see how they do on the road though. The Denver game was a great start, but I’m hoping to see more instances.
JazzHype - January 18, 2012
Jeremy Evans..
been high on him for a while – love his game.
And please someone clarify me that back and forth thing of beauty in the 3rd quarter with about 7 minutes remaining between Jefferson and Miles.. was that really Jefferson and Miles?! I don’t believe it!
Where did this teamwork come from all of a sudden?
Although Jefferson still had some of those “I’m getting triple teamed now is the perfect time for me to shoot” moments he did pass it out a couple of times. But.. Progress.. I’ll take it!
There were also a few defensive breakdowns which led to some easy buckets under the basket after a some nice inside passing by the clips but I can’t be mad with the overall improvement and effort the Jazz have shown.
Ty really deserves so much credit for the way the Jazz have been playing.
I don’t want to Jinx it but…..
CHAMPIONSHIP!
Ok maybe not… but wow I think the Jazz are definitely the most exciting team in the league right now!
utahspazz - January 18, 2012
I still have issues with Jefferson ever shooting thru a double or triple team, but...
Up until last week Jefferson was really only making passes out to the perimeter or else WIDE OPEN passes beneath the basket, but last night was the first time I was thinking “did Al Jefferson make that pass?” they were difficult they were accurate but more importantly they were planned and led to edu points mostly.
clarkpojo - January 18, 2012 via mobile
edu points?
JazzHype - January 18, 2012
You know, education points. They led to a better bball IQ.
No, easy points.
clarkpojo - January 18, 2012 via mobile
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