The Oklahoma City Thunder continue their trip through the theoretical 'have-nots' of the Western Conference with a game tonight against the Utah Jazz, in Salt Lake City. OKC played last night in Sacramento against the Sacramento Kings, and lost a close game. They are far from hapless on the road, though; they have a 11-5 record away from the Thunderdome. (I have no clue what their arena is called. We're a music related team with a radioactive waste management company's name on our arena. So I'm not going to make any fun if their stadium isn't the Thunderdome.) As a point of reference, the Jazz are 11-4 at home. So the Thunder are about as good on the road as we are at home.
Also they have two All-Stars and we have none. But they are winning almost 80% of their games right now. I can't complain. Click on to get to know what's going on with the Thunder, and what's going on with our Jazz.
There is no rest for the weary as the Utah Jazz, fresh off of bad effort in New York, face the Indiana Pacers. Unlike the Knicks, who were just too much for us, the Pacers are a very solid club – and they aren’t going to be missing George Hill and Jeff Foster any more than the Knicks were missing Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony last night.
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The Indiana Pacers are 16-7 right now, and they are 2nd place in the Central Division. They are a middle of the road scoring team (15th in points per game, 17th in offensive rating); however they are 4th best in opponents points per game and 5th best in defensive rating. No doubt a large part of this is due to Roy Hibbert anchoring their defense in the way many Jazz fans drooled over. Hibbert is having a stellar season, 14 / 10 / 2 / 2. His free throw percentage has dropped nearly 10% from last season, but I love how he’s able to play 30 minutes a game and foul only three times. He’s a big force, and I guess I’m a traditionalist – I give him a lot of the credit for their interior defense. Their defense is a lot more than just Roy though. They have five guys averaging over 1.0 steals a game (and two more at 0.9 spg) – and their quick hands have resulted in being the #9 team in steals this season. They are also #9 in blocks. And opponents only shoot 41.7 fg% against them.
The Pacers have won 7 out of their last 10 games, a stretch that included wins against the LA Lakers (in LA), the Chicago Bulls (in Chicago), against the Orlando Magic (in Orlando), and Dallas Mavericks (in Dallas). They have been winning games, and now get the hapless road team (us) for them to feast on. Their offense isn’t like ours. They are 29th in the league in assists, but they are great from the foul line (2nd best). They are also 9th best in 3pt %. Their offense is diversified, but they don’t really share the ball as we do (we gun for assists). They do share it though, no one takes 16 shots a game, and seven players take at least 7 shots a game. Most people are aware of their super talented guard Darren Collison and scoring forward Danny Granger – however it’s Paul George that we need to worry about. In the last few games he’s gone for 30 / 9 / 5 / 5, 24 / 4 / 2/ 1, and 13 / 7 / 5 / 3/ 2 he’s doing it all.
After the jump – a look at the Jazz
Who can’t get excited for Madison Square Gardens? The Utah Jazz may be a candidate, they have gone just 4-6 vs. the New York Knicks at MSG in their last 10 games there. Worse still, the Jazz are currently on a 1-6 slide right now in recent history. They’ll be catching the team from New Amsterdam without a few of their guys: no Baron Davis, no Amar’e Stoudemire. If that wasn’t enough, the Knicks will be starting Jeremy Lin – who despite having an amazing game last time out, has still only played in 39 NBA games. Those are some breaks the Jazz are catching. Will they make the most of it, or will New Yorks "simplified" offense for this game be too much? I am, of course, talking about how Carmelo Anthony will most likely take more than his season average of 20 FGA in this game. Jazz at Knicks . . . no longer featuring Par Riley vs. Jerry Sloan.
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Probably the first thing you have to mention is that the Knicks are 9-15, and I think many observers would look at their roster and have expected them to be above .500, and not winning less than 40% of their games. They’ve had a rough start, but I think injuries have played a huge part in that. They haven’t had a lot of practices or days off this season, and they did had quite a few new players to the team from last year. The Knicks have a lot of great parts, but they still aren’t all there yet so far this season. I’m going to stop making excuses for the Knicks (I have a soft spot in my heart for them – after all, Knick fan’s lives would have been vastly improved if Michael Jordan didn’t exist, not just Jazz fan’s lives.) and talk about the team now.
Mike D’Antoni plays at a high pace, and the Knicks this season are second to only one in terms of pace: they’re at 93.6. That’s super fast, especially compared to the Jazz who play at the 19th fastest pace in the league (90.9). I guess one reason is that D’Antoni doesn’t have slow guys like Al Jefferson and Enes Kanter to play with, and Tyrone Corbin does. The Knicks play at a high pace, but aren’t exactly a killer offensive club this season. A big part of that is that their starting PGs this year have been worse than ours. What the Knicks have is a Top 10 Defense in terms of defensive rating. They cause the second most turn overs. They also foul the second most in the league. They are, surprisingly, a very rough grind-y team, despite the fast pace.
They are still a Mike D’Antoni team and are #3 in most three point attempts this season. They aren’t killing it on threes though, they rank #26 in 3pt%. So, yeah, keep shooting ‘em, I say. They shoot 3% better than we do from deep, but they’ve taken +252 more long balls than we have. Carmelo, Landry Fields, Iman Shumpert, Toney Douglass, and Jeremy Lin, combined, have gone 86 – 317 from downtown this year. That’s only 27.13 3pt%. That’s worse than the Jazz. Just those five guys take (adding up their averages) 14.5 threes a game. As a team the Jazz take only 13.0 threes a game. If you add in the guys on the Knicks who can actually shoot and make from distance you get a tale that’s going to be told from 23’ away. That and Camelo isolations.
But don’t take it from me, after the jump we see what Seth (@Seth_Rosenthal ) from Posting and Toasting, the SBN Knicks blog, has to say about his team; while I take a look at our Jazz.
Do that lob thing again- Jerry Sloan
The Utah Jazz play host to the L.A. Clippers tonight at the ESA. This will be the 2nd meeting of the two team this season. The Jazz KILLED the Clippers on January 17th with a final score of a whopping 108-79. The Jazz won the match-up of the power forwards with Paul Millsap scoring 20 points on 7-11 shooting and holding the mighty Blake Griffin to 10 points on 12 shots.
Swat Lake City turned into Lob Lake City for the night as Jeremy Evans and Earl Watson used the game as a warm up for the Dunk Contest. We had highlights such as Tinsley's wrap-around layup and Evans cheating on Watson with Tinsley for the incredible alley-oop from the pass beyond half-court.
When you lose a tough game, like the Jazz did on Wednesday night, the best remedy is to get right back at it and play again. At least that's what I've heard professional athletes say before. And the Jazz have that opportunity tonight, when they go to Dallas to take on the Mavericks. But will this game become therapeutic, or become a losing streak?
Tonight the Utah Jazz mini-holiday ends, and they get back to work facing off at home against the Toronto Raptors. The Raps just snapped their losing streak to the Phoenix Suns last night, and Andrea Bargnani had a huge game. To help me break down the other team is Tom Liston (@Liston), which I’m sure a lot of you guys haven’t heard from before. It’s really a guilty pleasure to feature him because he’s not afraid to bring stats to the table to help him prove his points. It seems like I’ve been following him on twitter for yours, and I’m glad I have. He’s one of the many talented guys who writes for the ESPN TrueHoop site: Raptors Republic. Anyway, let’s get to it.
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There’s no simpler way to come out and say that Bargnani is having a monster season – other than to say "Bargnani is having a monster season". The best way for me to contextualize it for Jazz fans would be to say "he’s playing like vintage Mehmet Okur, but with less rebounds per game, but as the primary scoring option – and scoring more than Carlos Boozer ever did." I’m not going to talk any more about Andrea, because you’ll just have to see what he does in the game – in effect, I’ll let his game do the talking for him. I will talk a bit more about DeMar DeRozan though. First of all, he was flat out robbed in the dunk contest. "The Showstopper" was one of the best dunks I have ever seen in my life. I will go to my grave saying he was robbed. Second, the major criticism of him was his poor three point shooting from last season. In 2010-2011 he shot only 9.6 3pt%, which is a number even Ronnie Brewer can chuckle at. This year? He’s bumped it up to 31.6 3pt%. He still doesn’t attempt a lot of threes (only 2.1 per game), but this is something he has improved on from last season. That said, to echo what Liston points out after the jump, a lot of other parts of his game have regressed. Physically he’s the type of guy who can give us fits – a super athletic wing with speed and quickness. He came into the league as a near 50 fg% shooter, and this season he’s down to 37.6 fg%. In order to have an easy night we should dare him to shoot from distance. If he’s missing, the gamble paid off. If he’s making his outside shots then we’re going to be in for a very fun game.
More than the Raptors offensive issues, I’m more impressed with their defense; particularly in the paint. There is no big secret as to where we like to shoot from. If you look at the Raptors roster you see that they are one of the teams out there that has some beef on their roster. Aaron Gray is 7’0, 270. Solomon Alabi is 7’1, 251. Jamaal Magloire is 6’11, 259. James Johnson is 6’9, 245. Ed Davis is 6’10, 225. Linas Kleiza is the same size as Millsap. And we’re not even talking about Bargnani who can block shots and play solid man defense. This isn’t going to be like going to market like it was against the Minnesota Timberwolves, or depth challenged Los Angeles Clippers. Toronto is big inside, and tough. They will battle you. They are Dinosaurs after all. They foul the most in the entire league, and they are #7 in defensive rebounds and #7 in total rebounds. They don’t hit the offensive glass with much ferocity – but they will endeavour to keep you off of yours.
Oh yeah, other teams can only manage to shoot 41.9 fg% against their defense this year. They make other teams miss, and they make a point to work their glass. They’re even Top 10 in blocks. This isn’t the same old weak-in-the-middle raptors.
But don’t take it from me, after the jump we see what Raptors Republic Blogger and all-around Stats Savant Tom Liston ( @Liston , from Raptors Republic) has to say about the Raptors; while I take a look at our Jazz.
No team in the NBA got an offseason makeover as drastic as the Los Angeles Clippers. With one trade and a magic wave of David Stern's wand, the Clippers went from young and talented, to a contending team by acquiring Chris Paul a couple days after claiming Chauncey Billups. Whether or not the Clippers are legitimate contenders, certainly remains to be seen, but what is already apparent, is that they are one of the most intriguing teams in the NBA now. In some ways the Clippers are a better version of the Jazz themselves: a careful mixture of veterans and youth with a little more talent or experience at most positions.
But today should be a very entertaining game at least and really kicks off what will be a series of great teams and stars coming to play at the Energy Solutions Arena. So if you are into that sort of thing, go to the games and cheer extra loud for me.
The Jazz will take on the Nuggets tonight at the Pepsi Center. It wasn't that long ago that games at the Pepsi Center elicited no fear from me. It was kind of like playing at the Toyota Center, we weren't in the cozy confines of the ESA but we usually could battle well and come out with a win.
Now it is a different story, facing the Denver Nuggets in their house is a frightening proposition, I picture those ugly brown seats as the crowd stands till the first basket, I picture layup after layup and three-pointer after three-pointer by the Nuggets. I picture a game that can quickly get out of control if the Jazz are not careful.
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