Printable View
[QUOTE]How hurting are the Thunder? Sebastian Telfair was playing in China a year ago, but he started a long stretch of games through November, and remains a key guy off the bench. [/QUOTE]
He'd be a nice starter for the Jazz.
[QUOTE]Reggie Jackson, normally a back-up, is the No. 1 offensive option. Jeremy Lamb, not even in the rotation a year ago, now has a green light to shoot it. That
[QUOTE]Spencer Checketts: Trey Burke: "Coach really came at us at halftime. Honestly, we were all shocked at how animated he was." Twitter
"I just thought we lost our identity," Snyder said of his halftime pep talk after his team's sluggish/terrible/awful/ugly/downright dreadful first-half performance. " ... We came out and didn't get stops early and offensively we were just stuck in mud. We showed them a couple of clips and said let's get back to doing the things we do." Deseret News[/QUOTE]
He lost it before the end of the first half telling them to wake up. It lit a fire under them and it was the best they've played all year for the stretch that followed into the 2nd half. Granted it was another shitty team.
They slowed down Reggie and Ibaka. Burke has been getting some assists at least to go along with his crappy shooting. Burks might have had the best game of his career and 2nd straight double figure rebounding game. Exum might have had his best game as well. Other than Novak he's probably their best spot up shooter which is funny considering that was supposed to be a weakness. All without their superstar showing up and Favors in foul trouble again. Enes is playing well. Maybe he'll start getting big minutes or stay in th game in favor of Favors at some point even?
[QUOTE]But in terms of their games and skillsets, Okafor is increasingly drawing comparisons to the future Hall of Famer with five NBA rings.
[QUOTE] The Jazz don’t want to lose contact. With that, we mean contact with the .500 mark, especially early in the year.[/QUOTE]
With Okafor available? :coleman:
[QUOTE]It’s fairly obvious that this is a much better team than last season. It’s obvious that the Jazz are more competitive, are developing guys that could have some star power and want to maintain the consistency and the confidence that improved play has yielded early on.[/QUOTE]
It's not that obvious to me. Everyone seems to forget that there were close to .500 in the middle of last year. They've been beating crappy teams and teams on the back end of a back to back. Also lost to some shitty teams that they should have beat. Their bench is weaker with Alec starting. The pg position is weak again. They still can't shoot. They still don't defend.They have a lot to prove yet.
[QUOTE]So this week isn’t central to that, but it is important. You can argue that of their four games in the next seven days, Utah should only be favored tonight against the Oklahoma City Thunder. After OKC on Tuesday night at EnergySolutions Arena, the Jazz travel to Golden State to face the Warriors, come home to face the New Orleans Pelicans and then meet the Chicago Bulls next Monday.
That’s quite a week. Three teams that look to be in the postseason hunt, and three teams with some of the NBA’s elite players. The Jazz are currently 4-7, a bad week can put them in a difficult spot.
"It’s definitely going to be competitive for us," Utah center Derrick Favors said. "We’re going to have to play well if we want to get some wins. We just have to pay attention to detail and take things slowly."
The good news is that the week isn’t nearly as travel intensive as last week. The Jazz will play tonight, then take a few days off before meeting the Warriors. They do face the Pelicans on a back-to-back, but then get the Bulls after another day off.
In doing so, here are the slate of players Utah will be running into: Serge Ibaka, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Anthony Davis, Joakim Noah, Pau Gasol, Jimmy Butler. Oh yeah. That guy Derrick Rose is currently sitting out with a strained hamstring. He could very well be healthy in six days.
So the Jazz are going to have a fun time navigating yet another stretch through the minefield’s of the NBA’s Western Conference. It all begins tonight with a depleted Oklahoma City team. Looking at all of the evidence, tonight looms fairly important.
Tony Jones[/QUOTE]
I'd expect them to lose the next 3. Than their record makes them one of the worst teams in the league which they are.
[QUOTE]normally perfect hair unkempt, Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder did the one thing on Tuesday night he hasn
[QUOTE]Hood, a rookie forward out of Duke, has been a key member of Quin Snyder
[QUOTE]Burke put together one of his best performances of the season Tuesday night at EnergySolutions Arena.[/QUOTE]
Even at his best he hasn't been that good. The fact that they write articles about him still is amazing really!
[QUOTE]He finished with 17 points, nine rebounds and committed one turnover in 37 minutes to help the Jazz beat Oklahoma City, 98-81.
"Tonight was definitely a balanced game for me," Burke said. "I tried to make plays for others and I found myself in the paint a lot. A couple of [shots] didn
[QUOTE]"Alec Burks played unbelievably," Kanter said. "Got his second double-double in two games. If he keeps playing like that, other players are going to help out and this team is going to be really good."[/QUOTE]
And no one seems to be talking about it. Was shocked he wasn't the interview immediately after the game but instead it was Trey. Let's hope he can keep it up against Klay Thompson now.
[QUOTE]Gordon Hayward added 13 points and Derrick Favors contributed 10 with seven rebounds for Utah (5-7), which was playing its first home game following a five-game Eastern road swing.
"Those games when you come home off a long road trip are always a tough game," Snyder said. "I thought we did a good job responding to it.
"At the beginning of the game we didn't have any energy. Anywhere you can find it, I told them, look under a rock, look at each other. Anywhere you can find some juice, try to find it."
Dante Exum splashed in three 3-pointers in a crowd-pleasing 2 1/2-minute stretch of the second half, and Rudy Gobert and Joe Ingles also contributed to the victory off the Jazz bench.
"A lot of guys had good efforts in a difficult situation," Snyder said. "Everybody played a part in trying to pick us up. What Alec was doing defensively was crucial. He's the guy that had the juice. This is the best job Trey has done running the team and keeping his composure."
For Oklahoma City, Jeremy Lamb led the way with 19 points but shot just 5 of 15 from the field for a Thunder squad that shot just 35.7 percent from the field in suffering its third-straight loss.
"We were defending with our hands and they got 15 free throws in that second quarter," said Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks. "That turned the game around. We got up 17 and then we stopped doing what we were doing.
"And then our defense didn't come to play in the third (quarter)."
EMAIL: [email]rhollis@desnews.com[/email][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Through the first three-plus years of his NBA career, spanning 211 games, Alec Burks had never had as many as 10 rebounds in a game. That
[QUOTE]"It starts on the defensive end when it comes to those tight games," Burke said, pointing out that the Jazz could have won their road games at Toronto, Atlanta and Indiana on their recent Eastern road trip if they'd just tightened things up defensively in the fourth quarter. "We've got to execute at a higher level on offense as well.
"When it's a close game, anything can happen. It's just a matter of executing and then sticking to our principles on the defensive end.
"It's something we're gonna have to constantly buy into, which is the defensive end more than anything," Burke said. "The offense is gonna come but when it comes down to the last six minutes of the game and it's tight, both teams are battling, it's gonna come down to playing defense."[/QUOTE]
Try playing it the rest of the game and it might not come down to it at the end.
[QUOTE]NO NIGHTS OFF: Oklahoma City came into Tuesday night's game without its two best players, reigning league MVP Kevin Durant and All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook.
But Favors said the biggest mistake the Jazz could make is to think that, with the Thunder's two top guys sidelined by injuries, he and his teammates could win by simply showing up.
"It's the NBA and there's a lot of good players in the NBA, so you can have any night where a guy can have 30 (points)," he said. "So, yeah, we don't have to go against Durant and Westbrook, but at the same time, this is the NBA and you have to work against everybody. They've still got guys who can put up points and have their nights."
First-year Jazz coach Quin Snyder admitted that it's a challenge to make sure his guys are mentally ready to play, knowing that the Thunder's big guns are silenced for now.
"I think it's always a concern," he said. "And these guys have beaten people, too. They don't obviously have the firepower that they would have with two All-Stars, but teams come together in these situations and I'm sure they look at this game as a game that they have an opportunity to win.
"The silver lining ... is they've got some guys right now that are getting opportunities to grow and to play. There's nothing like experience. We can talk about player development and all this, but part of development is actually getting out on the court and competing. And they'll be better for it when they get those guys back."
CONFIDENCE-BOOSTER: Burke, whose buzzer-beater knocked off the Knicks last Friday at Madison Square Garden, said making such a big-time shot can be a big boost to a player's confidence.
"It helps it a lot," he said. "It gives you confidence when you hit a big shot like that to help your team win. Obviously to hit a shot like that for a young player, I think all young players get confidence from that because that's a big shot, and a lot of guys might not even take that shot.
"So for me, it's a confidence-booster," Burke said, "something that I'll definitely carry with me. It gives you confidence, the experience of the shot by itself gives you confidence to be ready for that same shot whenever the game's close. It's always big when you make a shot like that to help your team win."
SOMETHING'S WRONG UNDER THE HOOD: Jazz guard/forward Rodney Hood missed Tuesday night's game with plantar fasciitis in his right foot, marking the sixth-straight game that the rookie swingman has been forced to sit out due to the painful injury.
"He brings that scoring punch off the bench for us, kinda like Alec (Burks) used to do for us in the past," Favors said of Hood, a 6-foot-8 sharpshooter out of Duke who's averaged 4 points and 3.3 rebounds a game in limited playing time.[/QUOTE]
No he doesn't. I think Trey could be the answer to the bench. Where's Raul? :cry:
[QUOTE]Favors, who has dealt with painful plantar fasciitis of his own in the past, said there's only one way to get over it: "Basically rest," he said. "There isn't much anything that you can do. You've got to rest, put ice on it, and it's gonna take awhile to get it back healthy again. The main thing he can do right now is to take his time and rest."
Snyder said the Jazz definitely miss Hood's presence coming off the bench for the team's second unit.
"It affects us, it affects us," he said. "Obviously he's been a key guy for us off the bench. He makes shots, and one of the things that I don't think maybe people are aware of is he's a good defender.
"He's got length, and he knows where to go as much as any of our guys here right now that are still trying to find their way. So we miss him. He's an important part of our team."
EMAIL: [email]rhollis@desnews.com[/email][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]He had just used Jeremy Evans for the 4th time this season, then subbed him back out. He tried playing Jingles1 to unstick the ball in the offense. In his own words, he was
[QUOTE]no doubt that Hayward is an extremely unique player that make an impact in a bevy of different ways, he
[QUOTE]Burks is a very good catch-and-shoot 3-point shooter. Last year, he was at 41% and this year he
[QUOTE]Toure' Murry is playing better. And when I say playing better, I mean he's playing like the Dwyane Wade of the NBA-DL.[/QUOTE]
:wtf:
[QUOTE]Lastly, before we go on to the players, Jack Cooley did not play in this game as he was injured in the second half of Game 1, and did not return / was not cleared for action tonight. This meant more Quinton Doggett, and he is showing some impressive things in the paint.
Kevin Murphy, once again the scoring leader from last year had a poor shooting night. Only 3 of his 12 shots went in, and was a -25 in +/-. If he's not scoring he's trying to facilitate, and it's not quite second nature to him. And if he's not doing that he's not doing much else. His defense appears to be the biggest flaw right now. We know he can score. He's just not doing it right now. We don't know if he can defend at the "next to the NBA" level yet. Murph finished with 10 points, 3 assists, and 2 rebounds. His main benefit on the floor seems to be a guy who can draw fouls and get to the line. But he was supposed to be more than just that at the NBA-DL level. Furthermore, he has shown that he is more with his play last season.
Toure' Murry had a much better game, finishing with 14 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 4 steals. He shot 7/15, but missed both of his 3PTA. Here he is being used in a more natural way as a combo guard from the two position. He has the physicality to bully a lot of smaller guards and plays like his college self, not his muted NBA form that was just a pick and roll passer. I am beginning to think that he could be better than Ian Clark -- but Clark distinguished himself in the DL last year as being obviously too good for it. Time will tell if Murry will prove that this year.[/QUOTE]
Clark did not show that! He showed he needed more time there. I'm guessing he might be too good for the D-league now but would love to see him prove it since he does 't play anyway. Encouraging game from Murray anyway. Maybe he has some potential after all.
[QUOTE]Jack Cooley, was injured.
Nick Covington went 6/11, had 17 points, 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals. I was more impressed with him in Game 2 than Game 1, obviously. But it's just clear that Erie is a very bad matchup for him. Peyton Siva and Seth Curry just torched him (and the rest of Idaho) all game long.
Trey Bussey only played 17 minutes, and got to the line and made a three. His 9 points off of 5 shots was impressive, but he did not do much else.
Joel Wright added 16 and 3, while Quinton Doggett had 11 and 8. Neither of them look like NBA ready prospects just yet.
Furthermore, it's easy to see why in previous seasons the Jazz did not call up guys from the Utah Flash, the team gunned for the best defenders. And that's who Sundiata Gaines / Othyus Jeffers were. Right now none of these cats look like solid defenders, save for the potential of Murry right now. And he may only appear that way because he was just physically that much bigger than his opponents on Saturday night.
The Stamps don't play again until a FRI/SAT back to back in LA against the Defenders.
Kevin Murphy needs to shake it off and start making some of his shots.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Derrick Favors, the unsculpted low-post presence to anchor the Jazz defense for years to come.[/QUOTE]
I'm not convinced. Rudy maybe.
[QUOTE]It