Sweet music & sour notes -- Jazz vs Magic

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Ohhh, boy. This one was not pretty. A 101-90 loss to the Magic following last night's loss to the Heat means we are in the middle of a 2-game losing streak. Let's figure out what went right and what went wrong.


SWEET MUSIC

  • Boozer abuses the Magic's defense with a 29-point, seven-rebound night. Sure he shot more than any other Jazz player (24 FGA tonight), but he also seemed to be the only guy playing on a full tank of gas on offense. Defensively, he (nor anyone else on the Jazz) could stop Dwight Howard. But when Howard makes up his mind to take over, there aren't many big men who can tell him otherwise. Overall, Boozer played solid, but he didn't have a whole lot of help.
  • Jazz try to pull off a rally. This game looked over in the start of the 4th quarter as the Magic held a 77-64 lead. But some defense combined with some timely 3-pointers by Mehmet Okur trimmed the lead to 92-88 with 2:46 to go. Unfortunately, Howard dunked over two Jazz players a few plays later and that was the end of this one. But at least the Jazz tried to come back.

SOUR NOTES

  • Turnovers rule the night. Both teams had 22 turnovers, but it seemed like the Jazz were turning the ball over every time the got some momentum going. Deron Williams had a good night, stats-wise (14 points, 11 assists), but he had six turnovers. He has 11 turnovers and 19 assists in his last two games and has looked out of sync. Most disturbing is that he hasn't been matched up against top-flight PGs in that span (unless you consider Jason Williams and Jameer Nelson to be top-flight PGs).
  • Matt Harpring, Gordan Giricek, Paul Millsap, Jarron Collins and C.J. Miles played 55 minutes. What did that get the Jazz tonight? How about 13 points, five rebounds, five turnovers and eight personal fouls. That's about what you'd expect (points and rebounds-wise) out of Harpring, alone.
  • Atrocious interior defense. The Jazz allowed the Magic to shoot 55.2 percent from the floor and provided their trademark matador interior defense. Granted, Dwight Howard should score 31 points and have 15 rebounds on a great night, but if that's happening, don't let Tony Battie, Grant Hill and Hedo Turkoglu play well, too. There were wayyyyyy too many layups tonight.

Posted by Jeff at 12:57 AM  

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