Show 16 – An interesting week for the Jazz; Utah and BYU with some rough road losses

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Between an atypical scheduling week for the Utah Jazz and our unorthodox Tuesday-to-Tuesday recording days, there were only two Jazz games for the Utah Sports Cast this last week. That could reasonably be combined with the two facts that college football season is basically over and college basketball is still in the opening phases, and it might equate to a slow week for Utah sports fans.

It wasn’t, of course. But it might have been.

The Jazz dropped a tough game in the Target Center to the Pesky Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday, 103 to 110. Minnesota got an all-star caliber performance out of Kevin Garnett (31 points, 14 rebounds), which will not surprise anyone. What did raise some eyebrows was the 28 point explosion by guard Mike James, including some clutch free throws in the waning minutes.

I couldn’t help but wonder as I watched the impressive performance if we were witnessing the emergence of a new Jazz Killer, as we have seen on occasion in the past. Most fans are familiar with the players, if not the concept. Jazz Killers are decent-to-good basketball players who always seem to be automatic against Utah (really good players, like Kobe Bryant, can hardly be called Jazz Killers - they are more Everbody Killers). The first one I became familiar with, as a fledgling fan, was Vinnie Johnson of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s Detroit Pistons, who always seemed to just tear up Utah. Sometimes they were foreign-born big men like Vlade Divac or Arvydas Sabonis, and other times it was a quick perimeter player like “Fast Eddie” Johnson, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, or Jon Barry. On a few occasions Utah has traded for the Jazz Killer in question (Jeff Hornacek and Derek Fisher), but otherwise the only thing a fan can do is dread the spot on the schedule where a lesser star will have their way on the scoreboard.

A much brighter spot for Utah was the dismantling of the formidable Dallas Mavericks in ES Arena, 101 to 79. In fairness, the loss had as much to do with Dallas’ shooting woes (they missed plenty of open jumpers and three pointers) as Utah’s smothering zone defense. But, as I like to give credit to the good play of opposing teams, it’s only fair I mention the Jazz played very hard and fought on every possession of the game. Carlos Boozer was an absolute monster, with 31 points and 11 rebounds. Matt Harpring, Andrei Kirilenko and Deron Williams also stood out, and the Jazz improved their overall record to 16-5. The victory also meant the Jazz have not yet lost this year to any of the impressive teams from the state of Texas (Mavs, Spurs, Rockets). I wouldn’t expect that to continue for the rest of the year, but it’s a nice plus for the first quarter of the season.

The bigger story of the game was it marked Jerry Sloan’s 1,000^th coaching victory, a feat only five coaches in the history of the NBA have accomplished. There is no way to put that in any perspective in a few sentences, so I won’t try. It is interesting to note that Jerry Sloan is the only member of the 1,000 win club that has not been named Coach of the Year at any point in his career. In fact, of the top ten coaches by wins, only Sloan and Jack Ramsay (#10) have not won that particular honor. One argument used to be that any coach could win with the Hall of Fame-type talent Sloan had in John Stockton and Karl Malone. However, that didn’t stop the league from giving Pat Riley the award when he was coaching the Showtime Lakers, or Phil Jackson with the Jordan Bulls. There is a bit of a groundswell already this year for Jerry Sloan, so it will be interesting to see if that finally translates into the long-deserved award. My guess is Sloan will be snubbed again in favor of Brian Hill in Orlando, but there are a lot of months between now and then.

One last interesting thought: if the Jazz can keep winning and actually maintain the best record in the NBA for another quarter of the season, Jerry Sloan will be the head coach for the Western Conference All-Star team. I personally think it would be hilarious to watch Coach Sloan simmer with irritation from the bench as street ball invariably takes over the game. On the other hand, maybe he enjoys watching Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant throw alley-oops to each other.

There is much more in the actual podcast, including our thoughts on some big news for Real Salt Lake. I would write about it, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise for anyone…

Thanks again for listening! Please visit ShieldZone.com and take care of some Holiday shopping.

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zach@utahsportscast.com

nate@utahsportscast.com

posted by Nate and Zach @ 8:57 AM