Episode 29 – Limping into the playoffs

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I titled this blog entry “Limping into the playoffs,” which was, of course, a reference to the Utah Jazz. However, I think a more apt title would be: “Dragging themselves soldier-style through a big pile of garbage on their way to a first round playoff drubbing at the hands of the Houston Rockets.” Unfortunately, that would not fit on the header line.

On the surface things don’t seem that bad, as the Jazz actually went 2-2 this last week (as predicted by Zach during our last show). One of these wins even came against the league monster Dallas Mavericks, which should count for something, right? Wrong. I question the “marquee victory” against Dallas because the Mavericks were coasting after locking up home court advantage throughout the playoffs, and really had nothing left to prove. The second of those two wins came against the Portland Trailblazers, who did not have Zach Randolph or Brandon Roy available, were not going to make the playoffs or get a decent lottery pick, and were planning their summer vacations during timeouts.

Unfortunately, the other two games were played against teams who looked like they had something to fight for, namely the Phoenix Suns and the Denver Nuggets. I’m not sure if those games helped Phoenix and Denver in their playoff positioning, but I hope they amounted to something good to someone, because they ruined the Jazz’s chances of securing home court for the first round. Especially difficult to watch was the 98-126 home court butt-kicking administered by the visiting Phoenix Suns. The only time the Jazz had a realistic chance in that game was during the tipoff. One dunk and two layups later the Jazz were down 6-0, and things went downhill from there.

So, now they get to play in Houston for the first two games, all thanks to an end-of-the-season slump. On paper the Jazz have a decent shot of beating the Rockets, but they certainly have a tough job ahead of them. Zach and I rambled our way through a long position-by-position matchup during the podcast, and although I don’t want to spoil things, we concluded that the Jazz have enough talent to give Houston some trouble. But they would have to start playing decent basketball again, and/or hope Tracy McGrady develops acute near-sightedness. Barring one of those two things, the Jazz might be in for a short-but-long few games.

As always, we talk about much more than I write about, so please check us out! Besides more about the Jazz, we share our vague opinions about the Utah Blaze, Real Salt Lake, and Spring College Football, among others.

Top 3 in Utah:

3. Andrei Kirilenko

2. Gordan Giricek

1. Joe Germaine

We would also like to thank ShieldZone Corp, the makers of the invisibleSHIELD, who are one of our sponsors. In fact, the founder and entrepreneur of the invisibleSHIELD team can be heard at the very end of our podcast, if you are still paying attention at that point (and if Zach didn’t decide to edit him out).

Thanks again, and we would love to hear from you!

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zach@utahsportscast.com

nate@utahsportscast.com

posted by Nate and Zach @ 3:10 PM