Game 7 Recap: Utah 93 - Philadelphia 80

Game at a Glance:

The Jazz bounce back from the ridiculous loss to the New York Knicks and win a game on the road. This was the first win on this five game Eastern Conference Road trip, and was a necessary win in the first game of a back-to-back set. Adding to the drama of this event was the fact that it was Kyle Korver's return / revenge game against his old club, the Philadelphia 76ers. It was also Kosta Koufos' first start in the NBA because every other bigman was out: Mehmet Okur was in Turkey to be there with his ailing father; Jarron Collins was still injured from his golf cart incident during the summer; and Kyrylo Fesenko had to leave the country due to visa issues. Oh yeah -- it was also Deron Williams' first game of the season as well. Pretty big game, storyline-wise. The real story of the game was the dominating performance by the Jazz bench (38 to 12 points), and the Ronnie Brewer show in the 4th quarter. Philly had no answer. (and haven't had him for a few seasons now . . .)

[ ESPN.com's boxscore -- Yahoo!Sports.com Game Recap -- NBA.com's game highlights -- SLCDunk.com -- TrueBlueJazz.com ]

Jazz Quartet -- Top Four Players of the Game:

Andrei Kirilenko	Carlos Boozer	Paul Millsap	Ronnie Brewer
Photographed by Ron Cortes for Philly.com	Photographed by Tom Mihalek for AP Photo	Photographed by Jesse D. Garrabrant for NBAE/Getty Images	Photographed by Jesse D. Garrabrant for NBAE/Getty Images
Andrei seems to have a permanent spot here as the team continues to have a wide variety of injuries this season. Andrei had a much better game than the last one, and he finished with 16 points (6-8 shooting, 4-4 from the FT line), 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 block in 33 minutes of action (and only 1 turn over!). Andrei was patient on offense finding his team mates, out-rebounded Dalembert on some misses and shot at least three outside jumpers with a high level of confidence, and swished each of them. He was one of four guys with at least 16 points in the game!	Boozer had another double double, this time with 19 points and 16 rebounds. If he was shooting better from the FT line he would have had a 20-10 game, something that has so far been elusive to him in the last few outings. He made himself a good target for Deron Williams, and the side pick and roll was called often, and worked often -- Boozer actually had a double double before halftime in this game, and Deron Williams had 8 assists. Boozer was a beast inside, scoring in a variety of ways, but his jumper was off -- and that's something that we're going to need to be on during the rest of the season against harder clubs.	Millsap tied Kirilenko with 16 points off the bench (though, he was slightly less efficient, going 8-12), and added 6 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 assists and 1 steal. His defense and rebounding was instrumental during the 4th quarter run by the bench, and his hard work was rewarded as his team mates looked for him inside. So far the unselfish play of the Jazz has really been a key reason why they've continued to win games with so many guys out. Millsap is a great example of this unselfish play.	Ronnie Brewer is going nuts these last few games. Last game was a 12/7/7 with some other stats for change. This night Brewer started off slowly (zero points at half, after missing all of his shots), but his team continued to work the ball to him, and he delivered when it counted. Ronnie finished the game with 16 points (6-16 fg, 0-3 3pt, 4-4 ft), and had 9 assists and 4 steals. Yes, he and Andrei almost had double doubles in this game, and both are 'second' tier players on this team. That's depth!

Digging Deeper:

There were several points to this game. The first is that, really, the Jazz won yet another game while being vastly short-handed. Kosta Koufos has to start, and nearly played half the game, against some of the best bigmen in the business (Brand and Dalembert). He did a fantastic job, and while he did not shoot a great percentage (3-8 fg), the times where he caught the ball somewhere close to the rim he did not hesitate and made a good, solid move to score. He still managed to get 6 points, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks and a steal and an assist in his time on the court. I was impressed with him on the offensive end with his ability to actually make a fluid post move. I was also impressed that he got the rebounds he was supposed to get. (nothing amazing, like how Boozer or Millsap get rebounds they should not get, but at the same time, not like Collins who misses rebounds he should get) Lastly, while he was really nervous (as any rookie should be), he manned up and played good ball. He had a good sequence in the 2nd quarter where he was making life hard on Elton Brand (who would finish with 13 points and 5 rebounds), and tied him up and forced a jump ball -- which Kosta won. Great job, Kosta!

While Koufos was impressive Deron was somewhere between impressive and 'meh'. He felt the need to come back sooner than he should have, and while he did have an okay game (statistically at least, with 7 points and 9 assists, 2 boards, 1 block and 2 turn overs), he did not play a good game. He did control the pace and was able to break his man off the dribble and find an open man on occasion -- but he was just as likely to pass the ball to someone a bit off where it should have been. He also forced his way inside, but did not have the speed, lift, or balance to make layups. His outside shooting was also pretty off.

Photographed by Jesse D. Garrabrant for NBAE/Getty Images

All in all he finished with 1-8 shooting (worse than Kover's 1-7, or Price+Knight's combined 1-5) and was just not quick enough on defense. Lou Williams was going by him with regularity before halftime. Even worse is the impression this game may have left on the minds of some people -- Andre Miller finished the game with 25 points -- most of them coming on unmolested layups. Some people may attribute that to Deron's defense, however, that just is not the case. Miller got many transition buckets, and lay ups in the same way Brewer does -- camping under the rim and getting the pass. Still, 25 points to Andre Miller is ridiculous. It's a good thing that no one else showed up . . .

Or more precisely, that Philly only really showed up in the 3rd quarter when their defense really clamped down on the Jazz when Deron and Boozer went to the bench. What was once a 14 point lead ended up becoming a 4 point deficit after the 3rd quarter was in the books. While that may have been reminiscent of the previous game in New York, the outcome of the 4th was nothing like it. Why? I'll tell you why! The Jazz bench (Knight, Korver, Kirilenko, Millsap, and starter Ronnie Brewer) started the 4th quarter on a 9-0 run which was mix of hustle on offense (like Andrei's 2nd tip shot attempt basket) and defense (Millsap had 2 blocks early in the 4th). By the time the main timeout of the quarter occurred the Jazz bench had outscored Philly 15-4 in the quarter. After that it was lights out as Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko kept feeding the hot hand, Ronnie Brewer, and he finished with a high number of layups and 'and ones'. Game over.

Next Game: Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 -- Utah @ Washington Wizards [2nd night of a back-to-back]

Game 4 Recap: Utah 103, Portland 96

Game at a Glance:

The young and inexperienced Portland Trailblazers own a number of double digit leads over the Jazz in Salt Lake City, but are unable to close the deal as the Jazz (again without veterans Deron Williams and Matt Harpring) come from behind in the 4th quarter to win it -- the classic battle of experience and poise against youth and enthusiasm. Somehow this game reminded me of a game between the 1998 Jazz and the 1998 Spurs -- the Jazz won the battles back then, but you can see the potential for Portland to eventually win the war (they have a lot of potentially awesome young players), just as the Spurs clearly have. Portland fans don't have much to be upset with here (I fail to see why they are so down -- read their reactions here, here and here); they almost won a huge game against a division rival on the road -- without having their best player play their best game. Brandon Roy had 18 points (6-16 fg, 0-2 3pt), 3 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal -- if you guys pull off upsets without Roy scoring 20 you should be happy. And that's almost exactly what happened last night.

[ ESPN's Boxscore -- NBA.com's Highlights ]

Jazz Quartet -- Top Four Players of the Game:

Andrei Kirilenko	Brevin Knight	Mehmet Okur	Carlos Boozer
Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty	Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty	Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty	Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty
Like every game this season, in the 4th quarter he's shut down the other team's best offensive player. He also finished with 17 points (5-8 fg), 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, and countless drawn fouls against Portland early in the 4th to put them in the penalty. AK-47 went 7-8 from the FT line to boot.	Maybe he gets more credit than he deserves, or maybe he gets less -- it doesn't matter, we don't win this game without his steadying influence and ability to be a disruptive force on defense. Brev finished with 6 points (3-4 from the floor), 6 assists, 3 steals and a board. Moreover, he ran the team and helped us get back from being down 11.	If it wasn't for his end of the shot clock magic in the 1st half, the Jazz go down by 20 instead of just 11 in this game. Okur is finally hitting some outside shots, and had a team high 22 points, and was 1 rebound away from a double double. (And a 20-10 game) He drew the defense to him, and allowed the Jazz to get offensive rebounds and post up wings in the 4th.	Like Memo, Boozer was just short of a double double and 20-10 game, he finished with 20 and 8. He was not as aggressive as I wanted him to be, and he took a lot more fading jumpers than he should have -- but with the game hanging in the balance he scored inside on a layup with less than 30 seconds left and made all of his free throws -- he had several key rebounds as well.

Hon. Mention:

Ronnie Brewer -- Brewer had 16 points (6-12 shooting, 1-1 from three, 3-3 from the FT line), 6 rebounds and 2 assists . . . and was instrumental for the win (that three was huge), but when it counted Brandon Roy was scoring on him / getting by him with ease. On the other hand, Brevin was much more active on defense and was big on both ends of the floor. If it was Jazz Quintet then Ronnie Brewer would have been there, but then I would end up feeling bad at some other game down the line where 6 guys for our club did something good, and lament about it not being a Jazz sextet, and that's just dumb, and potentially not work safe. I gotta draw the line somewhere, and Ronnie will have plenty of opportunities to make it down the line. He had a great game, and helped us on offense when we were making our run, and had some nice dunks -- but even more impressive where his confident outside jumpers in the 3th.

Digging Deeper:

I'm happy that we got this win, and I felt as though doing so without Deron was a distinct possibility. (Scroll down to week 3) That said, I tend to agree with Hammy over at True Blue Jazz -- this game was a European Rookie's open three point attempt away from being all tied up with 20 seconds to go -- we really could have used Deron's offense tonight. The good news is that we didn't need him, we won the game, and we're a game against the Thunder away from going 3 weeks without Deron Williams -- and haven't lost yet. The better news is that our bench is winning games for us. We've had a good bench for a few seasons now -- last year he did pretty okay (save for the playoffs) with Ronnie Price, Kyle Korver, Matt Harpring and Paul Millsap. (And CJ for emergencies)

This season we have Brevin Knight, Kyle Korver, Andrei Kirilenko and Paul Millsap -- this has been the line up that gets the Jazz on runs where we claw back into games, or go on and distance ourselves from the other team, with. Those four guys average 39.6 ppg (Only Korver is shooting under 46 fg% in that group at 43%), 18.3 rpg, 10.9 apg and 5.25 spg. Oh yeah, and those four guys get to the line an average of 12.9 times per game. Not too shabby for the first 4 guys off your bench.

Portland is a good team, and I'm happy that we beat them. They have a few guys injured right now -- though I think that losing Deron (not to mention a valuable bench guy in Harpring) is worse than losing Oden (who you guys didn't need to beat us 3 times last year) and Webster. I think that Outlaw, Batum and Fernandez gives Portland some of the best young wings out there -- and that's not even counting Brandon Roy. Aldridge has a very effective offensive game (inside and out), but seriously . . . 2 boards? Total? Kyle Korver out-rebounded LaMarcus. This is just something the Blazer fans should not tolerate. Especially when guys like Batum crash the boards and get 6 for their effort (no need to even mention Przybilla who was a one man wrecking crew in the paint with 7 points, 16 boards and a million blocks). Portland harried the Jazz into 16 turn overs (so many in the 1st and 2nd quarter alone) and were on their way to a solid road win. I wouldn't be surprised to see the season series end in a split, or even 3-1 in favor of the Blazers if this first game is any indication. How often are the Jazz going to go 21 for 22 at the free throw line in a game? We needed every one of those to get back into this game and secure the win.

The under-appreciated positive is that Jerry Sloan is making some really good changes to the rotation depending on the situations of the game. And older version of Sloan would keep pounding away at the square peg and try to make it fit in a round hole (which results in a loss) -- but he was confident enough in our roster's make up (props to GM Kevin O'Connor) that he could keep switching people in and out to work for advantages. Need defense? Plug in Knight. Portland bringing the zone? Put in Okur and Korver. Is Przybilla out of the game? Put in Boozer and Millsap to score inside. As Siler points out, it worked out for us in this game. Hopefully Sloan will keep doing this all season long.

Next Game: Friday November 7th, 2008 -- Oklahoma City Thunder @ Utah Jazz [9:00 PM EST]

Hoops-pedia: Game of Destiny

Hoops-pedia is a new section (but not a weekly one like YouTube Tuesdays or Flashback Friday) where I would like to take some time to explain something about the game -- be it a play, or a rule, or terminology or something. Often I use terms that are only really known to me and those I regularly discuss basketball with. That's fine and good for those people and I, but not for the general population (i.e. the rest of the world) who are unfamiliar with that term. Hence . . . the necessity of Hoops-pedia. [Of course, there already is a web page named "hoopedia" which was the original name of this section until I typed it in to Google and found out that I shouldn't use that name.]

Anyway, today's Hoops-pedia is about the elusive Game of Destiny. This is a term only to be used in the most reverent ways. We all have Games of Destiny in our lives. They are not just limited to NBA players, or even professional athletes. Every kid in high school who sticks around after school to shoot hoops to the older guys (like me) who lace it up at the YMCA are allowed at least one Game of Destiny in their lives. The Game of Destiny is bigger than basketball though, it's in life when you do the best you can, better than even you thought you ever could -- this is when it becomes a Moment of Destiny. (i.e. something ridiculously great like fighting off a bear with your bare hands in order to save your pregnant sister's life or something . . . while blindfolded and exorcising your demons by finally overcoming your crippling fear of fighting bears)

In the small scale world of the NBA, the Game is Destiny is best realized when a guy with limited talent, Basketball IQ, playing time or heart puts it all together and helps his team win. While it may not be the best example, I look at the game back in the 1997-1998 season where Adam Keefe had a Game of Destiny.

Adam Keefe was probably a better volleyball player than basketball player -- but he had a few things going for him. He was 6'8, and he could jump all day. This allowed him to bat lose balls in the direction of more talented team mates, and surprise people by blocking their shots. He was a starter on an NBA Finals team -- but his NBA career (and relative skill level) was nothing to write home about. He did play in 681 games (regular season and playoffs combined) in the NBA, which is more than I ever will. For a 10th pick in the Draft he didn't really wow people, and ended up with career averages of 5.0 ppg (.502 fg, .714 ft) and 4.1 rpg in about 16.7 mpg. He's nearly a double double guy if you extrapolate his stats to 36 mpg (10.8 ppg, 8.9 rpg career) -- but no team would wish to play him that much. The most he has ever averaged in a season was 25.6 mpg for the Jazz back in 1997-1998. Essentially, he was Jerry Sloan's Matt Harpring before Harpring was even on the Jazz. A gritty, scrappy, under-athletic garbageman.

On March 22, 1998 the Utah Jazz were finishing up their 2nd Eastern Conference 5 Game Road Trip of the month with a game at MSG, in New York City against the Knicks. This game was a great game, as the Jazz ended up coming back from down by 17 (11 in the 4th) to win in Double Overtime 124-119. Karl Malone had 30 points (55% fg, 8/10 fts), 14 rebounds, 8 assists and 2 blocks. John Stockton had 22 points (61.5fg%, 2-3 3pts), 14 assists, 3 steals and 3 rebounds. If you just look at the boxscore, and the boxscore alone it would appear that they were the main reasons why the Jazz defeated a very deep Knicks team (Charles Oakley, John Starks, Larry Johnson, Charlie Ward, Allen Houston, Chris Childs, Chris Mills, Terry Cummings, and injured Patrick Ewing) that was coached by Jeff Van Gundy. If you watched the game live on NBC (like I did), or the YouTube videos of this game, you may notice that Adam Keefe was huge.

You may just notice that Adam Keefe had a Game of Destiny!

Keefe played 41 minutes in the game, shot 8/10 from the floor and 9/11 at the line for a whopping 25 points (or the same number of points as how many points Allen Houston scored as the primary option for a team in a game that goes to double overtime). He had 7 boards, 2 assists and 2 steals to boot. The scorekeepers at MSG cheated and took away the 2 blocks he also had. Just as a point of reference, that season Keefe averaged 7.8 ppg and did not regularly shoot 80% from the floor, . . . but he did in that game. And the Jazz needed it -- as everyone but John and Karl were having horrible games -- even John was missing gimmie shots, getting the ball stolen from him, and shooting 50% at the FT line, Hornacek was missing three throws as well. I would embed part of the game, but the YouTube user TRJ22487 has disabled that method of sharing videos . . . so here's the link instead -- watch Adam Keefe show all the other garbagemen in the NBA how to have a proper Game of Destiny! (It is a really interesting game, so if you have half an hour to kill on YouTube, click away -- this link is only for a section of the end of the 4th quarter though, and does not include any of the over-time periods, you will have to click on the next videos for those).

Gold Medal Game: Spain vs. USA

	USA beats  Argentina 101 - 81
	Wow! The United States had a tougher than expect fight against an Argentinean team that only had Manu for 6 minutes of action, eventually winning 101 - 81. Luis Scola had a great game for his nation, with 28 points, 11 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks. Carlos Delfino added 17 points, 8 rebounds and 2 steals to the cause -- though his shooting percentages were inefficient (33.3 fg%, 30.0 3pt%) to say the least. The American side was, once again, a balanced attack that features 7 players in double figure scoring (Anthony 21, James 15, Wade 12, Bryant 12, Paul 12, Bosh 11, Howard 10). The USA team won the battle of the glass 43 to 32, but that was really it. Both teams shot in the mid 40s (Argentina 44.1%, USA 47.1%); and both teams had the same number of turn overs (Argentina 16, USA 15) -- the difference, though, was the surprising proficiency the Americans had at the three point line (they made 10 threes this game, while Argentina only made 6), and the fact that the free throw disparity was ridiculous. Argentina went to the FT line 16 times and made 15 of them. The United States went to the free throw line 36 times (and made 27 of them). I didn't watch the game, so I don't know how it went -- but the more aggressive team usually gets to the line more. The boxscore suggests that this team was the USA.
	Spain beats Lithuania 91 - 86
	The other game ended up being (to me at the very least) an upset victory by Spain over Lithuania. Sure, Spain has all of those high profile players, but Lithuania is (usually) a better team. (Lithuania is like the Detroit Pistons -- they are always at the final four stage, but hardly ever break through) Spain was up by 2 at the end of the 1st quarter. Then Lithuania was up by 2 at the half. Then Lithuania goes up by 4 at the end of three. Spain had a 4th quarter come back and ended up outscoring the Lithuanians by 9 to finish the game with the 91 - 86 win. The first thing that is interesting is that Spain wins by 5 points in a game where Lithuanian workhorse Linas Kleiza plays only 11 minutes and doesn't score at all. Why is this important? It is because in previous games this Olympics he had scored 13 (+ game winner), 22, 18, 12 and 15 points. He was a major cog for this team -- and despite his absence (due to an ejection early in the game), the Lithuanians were able to go into the 4th quarter with the lead.
	Spain was, of course, playing without Jose Calderon, so it should cancel out, right? (Except Spain is deeper at PG than Lithuania is behind Kleiza) Raul Lopez had 7 points, 3 assists and 2 steals for Spain, and Ricky Rubio had 4 points and 4 assists in Calderon's absence. Together they also totaled 8 rebounds -- not too shabby from your 2nd and 3rd string point guards. Aside from that, the usual suspects did their things (Pau Gasol had 19, Rudy Fernandez with 18, Sarunas Jasikevicius had 19 and 6 assists, and Simas Jasaitis had 19 points and 8 rebounds)

I fully expect Lithuania to win the Bronze now, especially how close they got to the Gold Medal game, this is a certainty if Manu can't play in that game. As for the big show, well, you have to think that the USA team will try to embarrass Spain a 2nd time on their way towards achieving International redemption.