RMR Game 5 & 6: Wins and Losses

Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images	Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images	Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images	Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images

The Rocky Mountain Review has finished for yet another off-season, and all had a good time. Well, some had a better time than others. The Jazz finished 3-3 after beating the Atlanta Hawks in Game 5, and then losing to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 6. The true winner in these types of things are the fans, who get a chance to see the stars of tomorrow -- today! (or something to that effect) Over-all the Jazz played their regular style of RMR, where wins and losses are ancillary towards playing 16 people every game and not giving your younger prospects any real chance to get better.

"Given the Jazz's investment in Fesenko, there's no way he should only be playing 13 minutes in a summer-league game. These are opportunities for game experience that won't be there come November and probably won't be there in October, either.

It's also difficult for the Jazz to criticize C.J. Miles for skipping the Revue when Fesenko is playing so little. If it's so important to the development of their young players, then the Jazz's young players need to be playing 25-plus minutes right now." (Siler, 2008, The Salt Lake Tribune)

That, however, is a tangent. First the games! (and their long overdue reports!)

Game 5: Utah 83 - Atlanta 78

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final
Utah	20	18	25	23	83
Atlanta	14	21	26	21	78

The Jazz avenge their Game 2 loss (Atlanta 72 - Utah 63) in a game where the Hawks played their bench guys much more than previously in the review, essentially handing this game to the Jazz. Coach Corbin only played 9 bench guys for this game, and Kosta Koufos actually came off the bench to play 21:48 of game time. (Fesenko only played 12:48, but hey, no one on the Jazz bench seems to have a good reason for that, so we'll stop talking about it.) While this game did not have the spectacle of the game vs. Iran, or the sense of dire urgency as the New Jersey game, this game was entertaining enough for the fans of the home team. The Hawks were pretty much a four man wrecking crew of Acie Law IV (21 points, 5 assists), Thomas Gardner (11 points, three rebounds), Olumide Oyedeji (9 points, 7 rebounds), and the dangerous Luke Jackson (16 points, 4 assists). Only Law started for the Hawks, and played over 30 mins.

On the Jazz side of things it continues to be the Morris Almond show (29 points, 50+ fg%, 3 rebounds) and whomever happens to be on the floor with him. Almond and Law both went 8/10 from the FT line and were attacking relentlessly. Almond suggests that it was the 4th game of the review, and hints as though he has to play his game, furthermore,

"My game is not going to change over night," (Almond, 2008, NBA.com)

This is obvious, as in this system and with his quality of team mates he's not going to ever become a distributor. Ultimately, the Jazz would win ZERO games if Mobe doesn't end up taking the most shots for the team. Sure, he's not 'getting his team mates involved' (according to the guys on the Internet), but I've seen him pass the ball countless times to guys who botch the play and rob him of assists.

Game 6: Utah 70 - Dallas 82

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final
Utah	18	9	19	24	70
Dallas	24	21	21	16	82

The Jazz break their three game winning streak by getting rounded up by the Dallas Mavs in, pretty much, the ugliest possible way. Despite winning the points in the paint 44 to 26, *and* winning 2nd chance points 16 to 4 the Jazz still managed to dig themselves into a 20 point hole after three. How? It's pretty easy when you go 26 for 73 (35.6 fg%) as a team, and 1 for 12 (8.3 pt%) from deep. Morris Almond and Kosta Koufos (both starter this game) finished the game with 14 points a piece. While Fesenko played almost 10 more minutes than last game (this time coming off the bench), he only finished with 4 points off of really poor shooting (2 for 8) which ended up destroying his fg% for this tournament. (from 57 fg% down to 45.5 fg%) The only good thing from this game is that Morris Almond showed us that he can do more, getting a couple of assists and locking determinedly locking down Gerald Green into an 11 point (3 for 11) night. Kosta has his best shooting game and played quite well. (4 for 7 shooting, 6 for 7 at the free throw line, 2 blocks, 2 steals and 1 assist) Contrasting that, Fesenko put up one of his most frustrating games, and emphatically finished the night with an impressing dunk to end an unimpressive Rocky Mountain Review for the Ukrainian giant. To add insult to injury, not only does this last game resonate loudest in our memories, but with Kosta's good play, and Kyrylo's poor play, the big Greek finished the tournament with some better looking numbers.

W5 (5 factors that influenced the last two games):

Who: Morris Almond -- He's the only guy on the team who has played close to 30 minutes every game, and the only guy who shoots the ball more than 10 times every game -- no wonder he's our scoring leader!

What: Improvement -- This is something (outside of Almond's better all-around game in the loss to Dallas) that no one has shown except for the 19 year old Rookie Kosta Koufos. He has had his ups and downs, but he really came on strong in the last two games (averages of approximately 12 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 2.0 bpg, 54 fg%, in 22 mpg).

Where: The Three Point Line -- No wonder our team had to score in the paint and at the line so frequently? The Jazz team went 2 for 20 over the last two games from deep. 

Why: Talent Level -- This year's Rocky Mountain Review team was one of the least talented squads in recent memory. The three best players on this team were two late 1st round picks and and mid 2nd rounder. Back on the 2006-2007 Rocky Mountain Review our team had Deron Williams (starter, All-NBA 2nd team, Olympian), Ronnie Brewer (starter), Paul Millsap (could start on our team), C.J. Miles (has started for our team, just signed his 2nd NBA contract), Dee Brown (The Cousy Award winner in his Senior year of NCAA ball) and Rafael Araujo (a Top 10 lottery pick). How this team won 3 games amazes me, and probably is just a testament of Morris Almond's raw scoring ability.

How: Internal Development -- Jazz GM Kevin O'Connor has pretty much made the roster pretty solid, and lots of talented guys probably don't want to try out for the Jazz summer league team. Probably this is because the Jazz have 15 guys under contract (now...) and most of the young guys have been developed internally -- leaving little incentive to try out for the senior team. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see guys like Lyde, Paulding, Korolev, Fuller and Brazelton be asked to come back in October.

Stats!

More on this in the next post!

What's next? Veteran's Camp in October!

RMR Game 3 & 4: Wins vs Iran and Nets

Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/ NBAE via Getty Images	Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/ NBAE via Getty Images	Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/ NBAE via Getty Images	Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/ NBAE via Getty Images

The Jazz Rocky Mountain Review squad won these last two games coming from behind both times. Is this because the starters for the Jazz are that much worse than the other guys? I don't really know. The Iran game was filled with a very great, festive atmosphere that is more akin to other International sporting events than a summer league game. I was surprised at the strong showing by Iranian fans, and had no clue that there were so many Persians in Utah . . . then again, they are pretty much an invisible minority.

Their national team really brought it strong early, and had hot shooting to thank for. They were much quicker than the Jazz and their starting center (Hamed Ehadadi) was straight up 'housing' anyone that defended him. Eventually Fesenko got fed up and had to start blocking his shot. Thankfully he was not a major concern for the Jazz in the 2nd half as Morris Almond injured him in the 2nd quarter. USA! USA! USA!

The game was a celebration of sport, and the Jazz fans (usually called mean names by players of other teams) were very classy and the Iranians threw roses into the crowd after the game. Somewhere dark and evil, David Stern smiled -- the seeds for a globalized NBA were being planted that evening in Utah.

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final
Utah	14	24	23	21	82
Iran	22	7	16	12	57

As for the other game, the game last night vs. the New Jersey Nets was very entertaining -- but mostly for basketball reasons. Early on Jaycee Carroll (who has some Utah roots) was playing like Leon in Above the Rim, just shooting everything and being unstoppable. Thankfully, Carroll has no defense to speak of, and when it counted our guards Tyrone Brazelton and Morris Almond were just too much for the one man show. The Jazz were down by 14 but scraped their way back and won it thanks to the stellar play of Brazelton, Rickey Paulding and others. The Nets have a lot of talent on their squad (at least on paper), but Brook Lopez (#10 draft pick, 2008), Sean Williams (#17 draft pick, 2007), Chris Douglas-Roberts (1st rounder on some mock drafts, 2008) and crew did not do much.

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final
Utah	13	22	27	25	87
New Jersey	22	23	18	16	79

The game was tight in the 4th quarter, and the Jazz were able to pull it out, winning by 8.

W5 (5 factors that influenced the two wins):

• Who: Morris Almond -- he has been the only guy on the team that has shown that he has a solid future as an NBA player, this may be his last off-season playing Summer League
• What: Game of Destiny -- the Game of Destiny is basically the best a player will ever play, it's a single game that vastly outstrips their true playing ability. It's a maximal score, and not a typical one . . . it's a Game of Destiny. Kevin Lyde had one against Iran (6 pts, 14 rbs, 2 ast., 1 stl.), and Tyrone Brazelton had one against the Nets (16 pts, 7-9 shooting, 4 ast., 1 stl. -- all the money baskets down the stretch going 1 vs. 5)
• Where: The Paint -- over the last two games the Jazz have gone for 34 and 32 points here, and that accounts for 40% of the scoring. Is this a high number or a low number? It's the largest slice of the pie (FT is 25% of our points the last two games, and 35% have been points outside of the paint), and as a result, the only place this team is consistently scoring in.
• Why: The Playbook -- The coaches Ty Corbin and Scott Layden are reading directly from the script that Jerry Sloan, Phil Johnson and the rest of the Jazz Brass hand down to them. Every play attempts to dump the ball inside and go from there. This has been effective with Fess (1st play or so of the game he backed in on Lopez and scored on him), but less so with other guys. The desire is to get points in the paint, and not take jumpers. Part of this is the playbook, the other part is the talent level. This isn't a RMR team that includes Deron Williams, CJ Miles and other shooters . . . the only real NBA player right now is Almond, and his 17 ppg cannot off set the fact that no one else is really an outside threat. (Save, perhaps, Korolev or Paulding)
• How: Bench Play -- 13 guys have played in at least 3 games (out of 4 so far) for the Jazz, and they continue to go deep into the bench every game. This makes some guys have less than stellar stats, but the talent level drop off does not appear to be so huge -- and when the other team's bench comes into the game against ours, the Jazz bench goes on a run or two. If it was not for them, the Jazz would be 0 - 4 right now.

Stats!

Here is the official boxscore for the game vs. Iran, the game vs. the Nets, and the combined stats for the first four games (scroll to the last page on these sheets for the most updated info on the Jazz). I want to talk about the stats in a later post, so I won't get too into it. Quickly though, in the last two games: Almond has 34 points and 0 assists; Fesenko has 5 combined blocks and steals in 30 mins of action; Kosta has gone 5 - 15 and continues to get lauded in the press for his solid play. He's 19, sure, but he's also trying to play in the NBA. Let's not bring age into it and talk performance.

What's next? The Atlanta Hawks, RMR Gm. 4 on Thursday!

RMR Game 3: Initial post-game thoughts

The jazz finally win a game, and defeat the mighty Persian empire . . . or something like that. It was a blowout, and it always looked like one. After the first quarter with their amazing fans cheering them, Iran looked like they were going to destroy the Jazz. Eventually their lack of familiarity with playing at that altitude; their lack of depth (after injuries); and their shooting that finally cooled off allowed for the Jazz to tell them, once and for all that . . .

Image created by me . . . so yeah . . . kinda silly, I know

Yeah . . . something like that at least . . .

I'd like to say that the Jazz 82 - 57 win over the Iranian national team was because of Morris Almond, Kyrylo Fesenko and Kosta Koufos . . . but it wasn't. It was pretty much Kevin Lyde's game of destiny. Hiram Fuller also had a solid game, and Kevin Kruger (of the NBA D-League Utah Flash) and Yaroslav Korolev had supporting games as well. The games that are coached by Ty Corbin feature many players, 15 total guys played tonight, Almond didn't even play 20 mins in this game. I'll post more later on about this game as more information is available.

RMR Game 2: Hawks 72 -- Jazz 63

The Jazz lost their second straight game, mostly due to the fact that the Jazz felt like showing off many of the individuals who will not be asked back to attend training camp in October. This loyalty usually affords these fringe NBA players to get enough development time and exposure to be picked up by teams in other leagues (Europe and Asia mainly). There should be some cuts made sometime soon. Onto the game then, where the Jazz had another 3rd quarter collapse.

	1	2	3	4	Final
Atlanta	16	8	27	21	72
Utah	17	14	9	23	63

While the defense took it up a notch and only allowed the Hawks to score 27 points (as opposed to San Antonio scoring 28 the night before in the same quarter), it's still not good. Utah won every other quarter, and when the coach for this game, Scott Layden, took out our three draft picks (Almond, Fesenko and Koufos) the offense screeched to a halt and the other team drove to the basket whenever they desired. Late in the 4th when Layden put those three back in, it was too late and the Hawks just kept burying the Jazz with long distance jumpers as the clock wound down. (Clock doesn't stop in summer league?) Acie Law IV was just killing it, marginal to good point guards are torching the Rocky Mountain Review team the Jazz assembled. Additionally, Othello Hunter was the player of the game, doing everything he wanted because Koufos doesn't know how to box out.

I was able to catch the Internet feed for this game, and watch it in full screen on one of my computer monitors thanks to this link. It's the same link for each game, so if any of you other non-SLC residing basketball fans want to watch, copy that link and open it in your media player of choice. The Boxscore for this game is finally up and I can involve some empiricism in my analysis this time around!

W5 (5 factors that influenced the game):

Who: Kyrylo Fesenko -- if he wasn't in the game, ATL would have won by 30

What: 3rd quarter collapse -- 2nd game in a row, this time the lead went from +7 to -11

Where: The Offensive Glass -- Jazz are strong here even in the summer league, Fesenko had three less than the entire Atlanta team

Why: Atlanta fastbreak -- Jazz got so many offensive boards because Atlanta leaked all night long, and quickly won fastbreak points 14 to 4

How: Rotation -- Atlanta went 10 deep, with all the starters getting over 20 mins of run, Utah played 14 guys, when Atlanta went on their run, the Jazz had Adriatic League benchwarmers in the game.

Stats!

	Mins	Pts	FG	3pt	FT	Rebs	Off	A	St	Bs	Pf	TO
Morris Almond	30	17	(6/13)	(1/2)	(4/4)	4	(1)	0	0	0	2	4
Kyrylo Fesenko	23	9	(4/6)		(1/2)	9	(7)	1	1	3	0	1
Kosta Koufos	22	12	(3/11)		(6/6)	10	(5)	1	0	0	2	0

How did the guys with NBA contracts do?

Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images	Photo by Scott G. Winterton/Deseret News	Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images
Morris Almond had a Morris Almond type of game, being an offensive force who really needs to learn how and when to pass the ball, his 4 turn overs were bad, two of which should have been easy assists to Fess for dunks. In a system where he only touches the ball off of screens and doesn't have to create he'll be good -- like a Rip Hamilton.	Kyrylo Fesenko was the player of the game for Utah. He was a defensive force, playing good solid post defense and making life hard for guys who posted up or drove, often making them take contested shots without fouling them, and allowed for Kosta to swoop in and collect the defensive boards	Kosta Koufos played much better, and had nice stats (12/10 out of a 19 year old is always nice), but he only started to play well in the last part of the game and had a couple of hustle points (tip ins, and tip rebounds) that make his stat line look much better than the game he actually played. If shooting is his strength, then give me more Fess.

What's next? The Iranian National Team, RMR Gm. 3 on Monday!