Episode 15 – The Utah Jazz are cooling down a bit, sort of, and NCAA hoops is just heating up. More on the BCS

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The Utah Jazz are in the middle of a little bit of a slump right now. Actually, it might be more accurate to say they are in the middle of playing the basketball we thought they would play; although their season opening hot streak might have made most Jazz fans rethink expectations. It may sound funny to say that, considering they are 15-4 right now and still maintain the best record in the NBA, but there is some justification for it.

Since our last show the Jazz have gone 3-1, including a big win over San Antonio. This is a good week of basketball, of course, but the one loss may have counted for more as it was to Kobe Bryant and whichever four players the Lakers put on the floor with him. More on that game in a moment

In their recent victory over San Antonio (which would be a marquee win for them no matter what time of year) they got off to a slow start and didn’t shoot well for the entire game. However, the fact that Carlos Boozer, Matt Harpring and Andrei Kirilenko out-rebounded the Spurs by themselves was impressive, and Boozer played tough defense against one of the five best players in the league in Tim Duncan (no credit was awarded from Duncan, however, who complained about the lack of calls). But Jazz 83, Spurs 75 was the final score.

The next game was pretty ugly for Utah, who watched as Kobe Bryant smirked and swaggered around the court on the way to a 52 point performance. I would love to say something negative about Bryant’s game, and I guess I could point out his pedestrian assist numbers (3), but the simple fact that he shot the ball 41 times (FG and FT) and made it 31 times is undeniable. When your star player makes 76% of all his shots and scores 52 points, your team stands a pretty good chance of winning.

I did find it interesting to read about Phil Jackson, the coach of the Lakers, making some interesting accusations against the Utah Jazz, Jerry Sloan, and the officiating crew in the days leading up to the game. In short, he accused Sloan of intimidating the officials during Los Angeles’s previous visit to ES Arena, who then took center Andrew Bynum out of the game for the Lakers with phantom calls and traveling violations. It was just a typical game in Utah, according to Jackson, who conveniently ignored the following items:

• The Jazz out-rebounded the Lakers 45 to 27 during the game in question
• Utah had a better field goal percentage than Los Angeles, 54% to 48%
• The Jazz had more assists than the Lakers, 28 to 16
• The Lakers shot 21 three pointers to the Jazz 12 – and they were taking more outside shots than the Jazz; in spite of this, the Lakers shot 37 free throws and the Jazz shot 30

So for that game, the Jazz hustled more than the Lakers, passed the ball better (or at least more), and shot a better percentage. In addition, the Lakers shot more free throws in spite of not going to the basket as often as the Jazz. But, it was the officials bowing to the will of Jerry Sloan, and the typical Utah home cooking that was to blame. It wasn’t that your team was outplayed; they just got screwed by the officials.

However, I believe the next game, in Los Angeles, was more to his liking. It’s remarkable that he accuses the officials of being intimidated by Jerry Sloan (and paid a hefty fine for saying so) but his remarks intimidate the next officiating crew, probably more than Sloan’s in-game woofing does. I would suspect this is the real reason behind all of the talking, to make sure they get the benefit of the officials the next time around. The free throw margin in the big loss was more pronounced: 44 for the Lakers to 31 for the Jazz.

On that same note, the Jazz didn’t lose because the Lakers shot more free throws. They lost because Kobe Bryant scored 30 points by himself in the third quarter, without missing a single shot. The rest of the Lakers made some contributions (I think the whole team only missed two or three shots in the entire quarter) and you get a complete butt-kicking in Los Angeles for the Jazz.

They came back and won against the Seattle Sonics, with Mehmet Okur dropping in the winning three-point bucket with a little over a second on the clock. This was another game tainted by controversy, as Andrei Kirilenko seemed to throw the ball out of bounds with 27 seconds left and the Jazz down by two. The Jazz got the benefit of the call and went on to score on a bucket to keep them in the game.

It was another one of those games where the Jazz had tons of more points in the paint (52 to 32), meaning they were going inside all game, but the Sonics happened to shoot more free throws. The Jazz also had more rebounds and assists. However, the Sonics have two all-star caliber players in Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis, and the two combined to tear up Utah and lead the Sonics to 37 points in the fourth quarter. In this game, the Jazz were more lucky than good.

I completely understand the frustration of believing your team lost a game on a few missed calls, and I don’t blame Seattle for being bothered by it. I have seen plenty of games lost by the Jazz under the same circumstances (in fact, I saw a possible NBA championship lost under those circumstances). It’s easy to be positive when you are on the winning side of that equation, but my new philosophy is that it all balances itself out, sooner or later. The officials in the NBA are neither good nor consistent, so the all-encompassing, all-pervasive suckiness is a sort of pattern. In other words, a win for the Jazz will be balanced by a loss-they-should-have-won later in the season.

Anyway, so that’s my new philosophy and I’m trying it out for the first time right now. I can’t say I expect it to last, but it’s working for me this second.

There were more sports this week besides the Utah Jazz, including a blowout win for the Jazz over Milwaukee, but I have to save some things for the podcast. Besides, this has gone much longer than I intended it to. However, I had to complain about the NBA officials, and then break out my new philosophy of tolerating the officials. That sort of duplicity and hypocrisy takes time to develop.

Thanks to everyone who listens, and we appreciate hearing from you!

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posted by Nate and Zach @ 11:12 AM