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Jazz Bags - Post Game Thoughts and Notes 1-25-12
Ben Bagley - January 26th, 2012
Tags: Jazz, Pro, NBA, Basketball, Bags and Parks
That Hurts
At one point the Utah Jazz had a 18 point lead over the Toronto Raptors (a team who came off a tough win late last night in Phoenix). You would think that would be enough. Especially if you were in the building or watching how tired, and poorly the Raptors were playing at the time. But it wasn’t.
Instead after a Raptors come back and two overtimes the Jazz find themselves on the wrong side of a 111-106 final.
It’s games like this that as fans (and players) that hurt for a long time. As a fan it’s hard to explain it away with a simple “It’s the NBA, teams make runs.” explanation. (As a player however, that may be exactly what you need to do.)
Bottom line, this one hurts. It hurts because, it seemed over early. It hurts because, it’s a game you should of won. It hurts because, there’s the feeling you let one get away. You could waste a lot of time pondering the what ifs, but it doesn’t help.
Players told me tonight is the what if night, tomorrow it’s back to work on fixing the issues and going forward getting ready for Dallas.
Looking For a Positive
It’s only one game. It’s not a easy thing to grasp as a fan, but Raja Bell (who has been one of the voices of leadership in the locker room) told me just that. You can let this hurt for a moment, but life goes on.
Another positive is the continued fantastic play of Paul Millsap. I was asked by a fellow member of the media prior to Paul hitting the big 3 if there was any way Millsap would be able to get his shot off. My answer, I can no longer doubt anything when it comes to Paul Millsap. He’s proven me wrong too many times.
Also, Derrick Favors numbers were not jump off the stat sheet great, but the young big played 41 minutes and played well. He battled through being gassed and played decent defense down the stretch. A nice step for Favors.
Devin Harris continues to rebound after a poor outing against Dallas. Harris since Dallas is 12 for 17 with 9 assists and 33 points.
No Al, A Bigs Problem
Before the game I talked to Paul Millsap about how not having Al Jefferson would change what Millsap did. In typical Millsap fashion, the answer was it wouldn’t.
If he was honest or maybe with the gift of hindsight, the answer would be it changed everything.
With no Jefferson, Paul Millsap became the only option offensively for the Jazz (a team that runs most of it’s offense through the post). It also allowed the Raptors to double team Paul each time he got the ball late with little fear of other options that might hurt them. Twice in late game situations Millsap was surrounded by Raptor players and turned the ball over.
Teams of late have put more focus onto stopping Millsap (and they should the way he’s playing), that has been countered with Al Jefferson, but tonight there was no other option.
Devin Harris took some of the pressure off in the second overtime, but Millsap was still the defensive focus. If Al is unable to go against Dallas, or if this problem happens again, the team needs to find that other option on perimeter or one of the young bigs need to progress.
No Bench, Big Minutes
It was the Jazz bench early in the season that seemed to be the difference maker for this team. It’s been the bench lately that has struggled, tonight more than ever.
The Raptors reserves torched the Jazz bench 51-22.
It wasn’t just the scoring that caused the problems though.
Defensively the bench struggled.
This caused Ty Corbin to play the starters huge minutes tonight. Coming into this game, Corbin had done a great job of managing minutes of this team. Only Paul Millsap (30.1), and Al Jefferson (33.2) were averaging over 30 minutes a game.
Tonight every one of the starting five played at least 36 minutes. Millsap played 49 minutes, while Favors played a career high of 41:30 (previous high was 39).