The Morning After: Jazz at Nuggets – 12/13/13

Final Score: Jazz 103, Nuggets 93

Derrick Favors – Unleashed

Derrick Favors scored 19 points, grabbed 6 rebounds, blocked 4 shots and affected numerous others as he anchored the paint for the Utah Jazz. He’s now shooting 58% in his last 16 games, and 65% in his last 7. Even though Ty Lawson definitely appeared rusty and hampered in his return from a hamstring injury – Utah’s defense was arguably the most impressive aspect of last night’s win as they held the league’s 9th-best offense nearly 10 points below their season average.

Play of the Game: 8:02 4th-Qtr – With Denver leading 81-77, Nate Robinson drove to the basket where Derrick Favors smothered his layup at the rim – starting a 2-on-1 Utah fastbreak resulting in a Hayward-to-Burke layup. The play sparked a 10-2 Jazz run as Utah would go on to outscore the Nuggets 26-12 to close.

Favors’ 4 blocks were a season-high, giving him 7 in the last two games. The primary reason is the Jazz are finally putting him in a position to succeed – by allowing him to consistently play defense in the paint. I mention this constantly but last night provided the most crystal clear examples illustrating why Ty Corbin and Sydney Lowe have been stifling Utah’s potential with their pick&roll defensive strategy.

Watch and take note of Favors’ positioning (proximity to the basket) while also observing how little/much strain is being placed on Utah’s help defense:

Prior to Favors’ back injury, the Jazz asked their centers to show out hard on the ball-handler – and then recover to their man. The Heat often do this with their tremendous speed rotations utilizing the abilities of Wade, LeBron, Battier, Haslem, Bosh, Birdman, ect. That’s not Utah’s personnel.

Now, the Jazz are allowing their 5 to sit back in the lane – a la Roy Hibbert. By having their guard go over the screen – Utah’s defense is essentially funneling the ball-handler into the mid-range area while staying at home with shooters on the perimeter. Best of all, they’re keeping their primary shotblocker in the lane where they can utilize their size to their advantage rather than their lack of footspeed (not that Favors is slow, but he’s not faster than crisp passing).

It doesn’t take a genius to determine you would rather have an athletic 6-11 shotblocker within 15-feet of the rim instead of 24′. Among the many teams who defend in this manner – it’s what Frank Vogel has been doing with Roy Hibbert, what the Spurs have often switched to while relying on Tim Duncan’s presence, the style  Blazers are now adopting to limit opponents’ open 3pt-attempts, and what the Charlotte Bobcats are now doing to cover for Al Jefferson. Fool Ty Corbin once, shame on you. Fool him 200 times and he’ll make an adjustment.

Some media members are obsessed over Favors’ lack of a go-to move, but he is plenty good right now. He’s an incredibly efficient player scoring on pick&rolls, offensive-rebounds and dives to the rim – and defensively he can do things that maybe 10 big guys can do in the entire NBA. If he adds a bigtime consistent low-post move fine – but right now the Jazz are just letting him go out and play (at both ends) and it’s fun to see. 4 years/$47 million is looking better each night.

Offensive Stat Mining

After shooting 13-23 (57%) from behind the arc in Sacramento, you knew that mark was something the Jazz couldn’t sustain. It didn’t appear to be the case early on last night, as Utah shot 6-7 (86%) in the 1st-Qtr. In the 2nd-half they finally came back down to earth – shooting 1-7 in the 2nd-Qtr and 1-7 in the 2nd-Half to finish the game 8-21 (38%) from deep.

As I wrote during the preseason – Richard Jefferson had quietly become a good spot-up three-point shooter over the last several seasons. After shooting 19% from deep in the first 8 games, he’s now up to a respectable 39% for the season that helps offset his subpar defensive play. His 5-6 mid-range and 6-7 3pt-shooting in the past 2 games assuredly will not continue – but it’s still likely he will continue to hover around 40% on threes for the season.

Marvin Williams’ 3pt-shooting is something more interesting to keep an eye on. At 42% in 2013-14, Williams entered the season as a career 33% shooter from behind the arc, never shooting above 39% and shooting above 36% in a season just once. Perhaps it’s from receiving more open looks playing PF, perhaps he’s having one of those hot 3pt seasons (like Matt Harpring in 2002-03), perhaps he is indeed a much-improved shooter or perhaps he’s due for some regression in the final 57 games of the season.

It also raises the interesting question, why are the Jazz so willing to play a veteran stretch-4 next to Favors this season that stifles Kanter’s development while ignoring the tremendous potential of a Paul Millsap/Favors pairing? While the Marvin/Favors frontcourt duo entered last night’s game with a +3.5 Net-Rating, last season Millsap/Favors produced a +4.6 Net-Rating that was up to a whopping +10.3 in 2011-12.

Regardless, with Marvin in the lineup the Jazz offense has kicked into high-gear – averaging nearly 9 more FG attempts per game, 1.2 more FT attempts, 2.6 fewer turnovers and 3.5 more 3pt-attempts in his 7 starts. Conversely, their offensive rebound rate is down 2.4% – or about 2 offensive rebounds per game.

At the same time, it’s still premature to automatically assume those numbers dictate that simply replacing Kanter with Marvin results in a better Jazz team. While the offensive boost does reflect favorably for Marvin – it also coincides with the return of Trey Burke, who since replacing John Lucas at PG has made a world of difference for Utah on the offensive end. Marvin definitely gives the Jazz spacing for more 4-out-1-in sets, but does figure to cause Utah matchup problems against bigger teams.

In the games Trey Burke starts – the Jazz shoot better from virtually everywhere. They average 2.2 more FG attempts per game (shooting 3% higher), shoot 1.3 fewer FT’s, actually attempt 1.9 fewer threes (but shoot 10% better) and most importantly turn the ball over 4.2 fewer times. The discrepancy between Burke and Marvin’s offensive boost lies in the 4 more games Marvin missed last week. Although Kanter played very well individually – as a team Utah’s offensive output and efficiency declined although much of that could also be attributed to playing the league’s top-2 teams in 3 of the 4 games, as well as a weaker supporting cast that included big minutes for a less impressive RJ, Mike Harris and of course Andris Biedrins.

If you look at how Kanter played against Indiana and Portland – it’s clear he still has the same potential and ability to be a good player in this league that he did to start the season. How that’s able to happen with Marvin starting is unclear – but in order to meet Dennis Lindsey’s 3-D’s – this is something that must be sorted out.

The Final Word

The Jazz have played good basketball in a large portion of their last 8 games – showing some encouraging improvement at both ends of the court. Offensively much of that improvement is due to the return of Trey Burke – who now gives Utah a playmaker at point guard that makes the game easier for all of his teammates.

Defensively, the adjustment in defending the pick&roll is a welcomed change but before we go give Ty Corbin a medal – let’s remember coaching isn’t simply figuring out one defensive tactic and then calling it a day. It’s about constant adjustments.

Look at how Greg Popovich has altered the Spurs’ identity from a post-up/kick-out to 3pt-shooters team in his 1998-99 championship team that had virtually no perimeter playmakers – to a more versatile inside-outside team in the mid-2000’s to today’s masterpiece that is a hallmark for the modern-day perimeter-oriented motion/screen-roll/floor-spacing/3pt-shooting ensemble many teams are trying to perfect.

Furthermore, look at Utah’s franchise where Jerry Sloan altered his system from the Stockton&Malone offense to fit the talents of the 2003-04 talent-devoid team and then back to more of the Stockton&Malone system with many tweaks to better suit the Deron/Boozer teams.

Each year coaches have a different team with players possessing different strengths and weaknesses. Taking 20 games (which is generous given you could argue it’s closer to 1-2 seasons) too long to adjust something obvious like pick&roll defense (that also includes flawed initial thinking) is certainly less than ideal for a professional basketball coach. Where 1 game can determine homecourt advantage, 5 games playoff potential and 10 games between meaningful basketball in March/April – perhaps the only thing saving Corbin now is Utah’s horrid start put them in such an embarrassing hole that low expectations have since plummeted to absurd levels where a single win regardless of opponent is now being hailed as a phenomenal coaching achievement.

To his credit, Corbin has adjusted Utah’s offense from the predominant low-post (Al-fense) centered around Al Jefferson to more of a versatile screen-roll system (which also magnifies the lack of diversity in last year’s strategy and foresight). He’s doing a better job utilizing timeouts to stop the flow and break offensive/defensive lulls and is being a little more creative with is lineups and rotations. Last night I thought he was smart to leave Jeremy Evans in until about the 4-min mark of the 4th-Qtr which gave Utah a nice lift on the boards.

If you thought Ty was a good coach from the beginning then you’re probably overjoyed (or stumbling around blindly – just kidding but not really) after the past couple games. If you thought he’s been a poor coach for much of his first 2 1/2 seasons then the start to this season probably has cemented that belief. If you were on the fence, it’s unlikely a 2-game win streak or the recent 4-game slide set amidst the backdrop of a 6-19 season is enough to sway you either way. As of today, Ty Corbin is still a lame duck coach without a contract extending past this season – and I think that fact speaks loudest of all.

Looking Ahead

With the 18-4 San Antonio Spurs coming to town, the Jazz have a great opportunity to show they can repeat their recent hot-streak against a high-caliber opponent. With San Antonio playing on the second night of a back-to-back (after Duncan played 36 and Parker 35 minutes), the Jazz have a good chance to jump on the Spurs early  – similar to their last meeting where strong performances by Favors and Burks allowed them to play from ahead much of the night before a 4th-Qtr meltdown gave San Antonio a 91-82 victory.

This time around, the Jazz have Trey Burke back playing terrific basketball in getting his teammates quality looks, they have Gordon Hayward (who probably had the best game of his career last night and I should have mentioned more), Alec Burks and Derrick Favors all rolling to go along with the hot-shooting of veteran journeyman Jefferson and Williams.

Pop is still the best – and it will be interesting to see how he defends Burke in the pick&roll tonight, how he attacks Marvin at PF, and if he tries to go big with Duncan&Splitter. The Jazz are still only 6-19, but their recent play provides not only more hope for the future but also plenty of intrigue in a game that on paper looks like a mismatch.

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The Morning After: Nuggets at Jazz – 11/11/13

In front of the smallest Utah home crowd (16,866) since December 7, 2005 – the Jazz came out and treated their fans to 38 minutes of competitive basketball. After suffering two consecutive wire-to-wire defeats, there were several improvements overall.

• 7:53 1st-Qtr – The Jazz held their first lead in an NBA game since the 10:24-mark of the 2nd-qtr versus the Celtics – over two and a half games ago.
• The Jazz entered the 4th-qtr trailing 70-68, the first time in 5 games they were not facing a deficit of 20 points or more after three quarters.
• The Jazz regained the lead in the 2nd-half at 73-72 with 10:18 remaining in the 4th-qtr, their first 2nd-half lead since November 2nd against the Rockets.

A baby’s baby steps, as the Jazz went from a team that was totally outplayed for 48-minutes to a team that was only outplayed in the final 10-minutes. After going up 73-72, the Nuggets then outscored the Jazz 28-8 to close.

Note: This breakdowns is very “wordy,” so it was divided into individual stand-alone sections and sub-sections that can be read at your discretion.

Beginning: Jazz 73, Nuggets 72

First-Half Spotlight: The best player early was clearly Gordon Hayward – with 18 points on 7-11 shooting and 4-4 from the FT line in the first 24 minutes.

Hayward’s first basket came on an aggressive post-up move on Randy Foy on the left-block. His second basket came driving away from the screen where he blew past Foye and finished strong over Jordan Hamilton for a three-point play. He then hit a pull-up 22-footer off high screen-roll, then another side screen-roll with a great drive angle on his drive on the big (Faried) stepping out where he finished with a floater while drawing contact for another three-point play. By this point Gordon was feeling it so much that he then took and made a contested step-back 20-footer on the baseline to close the 1st-qtr with 12 points.

Halfcourt Execution:
Utah’s halfcourt execution was much better – although it didn’t always result in points.
10:08 1st-Qtr – Jazz ran a nice Lucas-Kanter cross-screen action in the lane with Lucas then coming off a weakside pindown for an open top-of-the-key three. Great look but Lucas missed.

1:19 1st-Qtr – Fantastic UCLA set, instead of running through on the shuffle-cut Lucas bounced back to the three-point line and reversed the ball to Jefferson who came off a weakside pindown for another wide-open three. Perfect execution, perfect look – but Jefferson missed.

0:08 1st-Qtr – On Utah’s final possession of the 1st-Qtr, the Jazz executed one of their best halfcourt possessions of the season. With Hayward handling up top showing a high-screen roll with Favors, Denver began to shade their defense towards him. Hayward immediatelyreversed the ball to Burks on the left side who quickly got into screen-roll with Marvin Williams – while Hayward and Favors drifted (Hayward – far wing; Favors  -short-corner) to provide floor-spacing. Burks hit Marvin who rolled down the lane and dished to Favors. Favors probably should have taken an open 8-footer but was also a second late diving to the basket and ended up taking a contested shot at the rim instead of what should’ve been an easy dunk. Again near-perfect execution on 90% of the play and no points because of one simple timing error.

11:41 3rd-Qtr – Utah opened the 2nd-half with a side screen-roll where Hayward hit a rolling Favors which collapsed Denver’s defense. Favors kicked out to Lucas who swung the ball to a wide-open Richard Jefferson for a open corner-three that missed. Perfect execution, zero points.

Second-Half Spotlight: 2nd-Half Utah star was Derrick Favors – who scored 16 points on 6-9 shooting to go with 7 rebounds.

In the 1st-Qtr Favors hit two face-up and step-back jumpers over the bigger (and less mobile) Timofey Mozgoz but sat the final 5-minutes of the 1st-half due to foul trouble. In the 2nd-half he came alive on his way to a season-high 21 points.

10:00 3rd-Qtr – A terrific pin-down screen by Favors freed Jefferson for a mid-range jumper that he missed. Because Denver had to show out on RJ, they couldn’t blockout Favors who was able to establish position, rebound and score while drawing a foul. Even though RJ missed – Utah’s execution was able to get them a second-chance basket.

Then Favors began to get into a groove. Next time he touched the ball in the post he hit a little face-up jumper stepping off the right block. He also showed more aggressiveness posting up Jordan Hamilton and Anthony Randolph resulting in 2 fouls and 4 FT attempts.

3:20 3rd-Qtr – High screen-roll with Hayward where Favors rolled and made the little dump-off pass to Gobert (for a dunk) that we’ve said he’s improved so much this season.

1:34 3rd-Qtr – Gobert then returned the favor to Favors with a nice dump-off pass for a three-point play – this time with Gobert rolling down the lane on side-screen roll that Denver forced baseline and Favors flashing to the rim.

High-Water Mark:

10:18 4th-Qtr – Away from the ball, Burks curled off a Gobert screen, caught a pass at the elbow and converted a hanging layup for a three-point play that gave the Jazz a 73-72 lead.

Ending: Nuggets 28, Jazz 8

How exactly did the Jazz fall apart and turn a 1-point lead into a 19-point loss in just 10-minutes?

Offense: Murphy’s law of poor execution, and missing shots on the few possessions they did get clean looks.

Possession #1: Jazz tried posting Marvin on the left block on Andre Miller but couldn’t get him the ball. With the shot clock winding down Marvin was later forced to take a contested three that missed.

Possession #2: Burks missed 10-foot floater driving baseline on screen-roll. Gobert fouled on rebound and made 1 FT.

Possession #3: Kanter missed turnaround jumper over Faried on left-block.

Possession #4: Side screen-roll, Burks initially missed a rolling Favors but swung ball to weakside where Kanter eventually got a point-blank reverse layup that he missed.

Possession #5: Side screen-roll, where Favors was again open on roll but didn’t get the ball. Ball swung to weakside and Lucas made nice drive to basket for layup.

Possession #6: High screen-roll, Hayward hit Gobert rolling down lane but Gobert missed the layup and the follow-tip.

Possession #7: Hayward right-block post-up on Andre Miller but called for questionable travel on baseline spin.

Possession #8: Favors left-block postup where he drew FT’s with nice drop-step.

Possession #9: Hayward pushing ball off a miss but turned it over on a low pass to Kanter.

Possession #10: Favors rebounded a missed Lucas jumper for a put-back dunk.

Possession #11: Andre Miller backed off Burks who was looking to feed Favors in the post, so Burks raised up and launched a three that missed.

Possession #12: John Lucas was able to penetrate setting off great ball-movement that got Hayward a wide-open three from the right wing…that also missed.

Possession #13: Random draw and kick possession with Jefferson missing a semi-contested three and Utah giving Denver FT’s with a loose-ball foul on the rebound to make it 96-79.

Possession #14: Screen-roll with Lucas making a very nice find to Favors for a dunk.

Possession #15: In transition Burks took Andre Miller off-the-dribble and missed a contested layup.

Possession #16: Hilarious fastbreak where Lucas overshot Jefferson on the outlet pass. RJ goes sprawling as the ball gets deflected back to Burks, who then trips over the fallen Jefferson but is able to kick it over to Hayward wide-open for a corner-3. Hayward missed and Lucas comes flying in for a tip that also misses.

Possession #17: High screen-roll with Lucas driving and missing a floater.

Defense: As has been the story for the past three seasons, Utah’s pick&roll defense was annihilated late.

9:21 4th-Qtr – Denver posted Faried on undersized PF Marvin Williams who scored on a 6-foot jump hook. 75-73.

8:49 4th-Qtr – On screen-roll, Nate Robinson drove, drew two defenders kicked out to Andre Miller for an open three. 78-74.

8:11 4th-Qtr – Denver high-screen roll, Utah tried to force baseline but Robinson split it (on Gobert) and drove lane for easy dish to Faried for dunk. 80-74.

7:13 4th-Qtr – Denver side screen-roll, where Nuggest screened baseline and Gobert lost contain and allowed Foye to drive and pull-up for open 15-footer. 10-1 run. 82-74.

6:09 4th-Qtr – Denver posted Andre Miller on John Lucas who hit a fade-away in the lane over him. 84-76.

5:02 4th-Qtr – Denver ran a PG side-screen-roll with Andre Miller screening for Ty Lawson. Burks switched it with Lucas but Lucas was expecting Burks to show and recover (Utah’s strategy but Burks isn’t used to defending the screener). As a result, Miller was left wide open, Gobert came out to defend him and Miller drove right by him for the layup. 86-76.

4:15 4th-Qtr – Denver ran a double high screen-roll, with Arthur popping and Hickson rolling. Lawson passed back to Arthur open at the top-of-the-key but both Utah bigs raced out and Arthur fired down to a wide-open Hickson for the layup. 88-77.

3:36 4th-Qtr – Denver high screen-roll where Lawson got Favors with a hesitation-dribble coming off the screen and blew by him for a layup. 90-79.

2:55 4th-Qtr – Denver high screen-roll where Kanter showed out but Lawson still got around him and to the rim for a 2-shot foul on Favors. 92-79.

2:21 4th-Qtr – Multiple Denver high screen-rolls. The first got them a mismatch with Richard Jefferson switching onto Lawson, the second Lawson again drew two Jazz defenders and hit Hickson down the lane for an uncontested layup where neither Lucas or Hayward helped from the weakside. 94-79.

1:35 4th-Qtr – Denver ran another double high screen-roll with Jefferson again switching onto Lawson – and Lawson burning him on the switch with a drive then up&under layup. 98-79.

0:37 4th-Qtr – Another RJ switch onto Lawson, with Lawson driving and dishing to Hickson for a 2-shot foul. 100-79.

The Final Word

The Jazz definitely played better than they had in their previous 4 games, which is both a sign of encouragement as well as how low expectations have fallen for them.

The Jazz offense produced another meager output but their execution (particularly in the first 3-quarters) was improved to the point they should have scored far more than they did. Missing makeable shots was critical – and much of that blame falls on the front office who brought in the players this offseason who missed most of them.

Defensively, Utah had some success early but when crunchtime rolled around, once again they were completely abused on the pick&roll. First-year coach Brian Shaw even showed a few wrinkles and adjustments with the PG-PG screen-roll (that bamboozled Burks&Lucas) and the double-high screen-roll that baffled Utah’s bigs and created a mismatch for Ty Lawson.

If you accept the loss and feel that the Jazz were not capable of winning, then Utah massively over-achieve in grabbing a 4th-quarter lead at home. If you think the Jazz should have won, then they completely folded in the final 10-minutes.

I actually think Ty Corbin coached one of his better games this season – as he got Utah executing fairly well offensively, didn’t make many baffling substitutions and got a pretty good effort out of his beaten down players. He’s never formulated good defensive strategies or adjustments and that continued tonight. However, if late-game defensive breakdowns haven’t been reason enough to let him go until now, last night’s loss certainly wasn’t anything worse than what the Jazz have already experienced.

The Jazz have shown spunk and played semi-decently at home – and as long as that continues I feel like Ty will remain coach for the near-future regardless of road disasters. With that said, keep November 26th in mind as that’s the next time the Jazz will have an extended break between games. They play the Bulls on the 25th, then have the next three days off. If Utah is looking to make a “transition” before their Christmas roadtrip, that may be the best time to do so.

If Thanksgiving passes with no changes coming, then last night’s “baby steps” should have become toddler steps with the Jazz having something semi-respectable in the win column by then.

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Flashback: Nuggets at Jazz – 1/26/07

On January 26, 2007 the Utah Jazz and the Denver Nuggets traded bullets in a wild back-and-forth shootout that went down to the final minute – with the Jazz prevailing 116-111.

While broadcasting a Jazz game in Denver later in the 2006-07 season, ESPN’s Bill Walton brought up their January 26th meeting, saying “It was one of the greatest games of the entire NBA season. I’m watching it and saying ‘We have got to get these guys on our [station].”

True enough, Utah’s 116-111 victory had a little bit of everything. The Nuggets’ superstar duo of Allen Iverson (33 points) and Carmelo Anthony (37 points) came out on fire leading Denver to a 67-62 first-half lead. The Jazz stayed within striking distance but a sprained ankle late in the first-half would sideline Jazz starter Andrei Kirilenko for the remainder of the game.

With a slew of minutes available and the Nuggets in control, in stepped 21-year old rookie Ronnie Brewer (12 points). Trailing 82-71 with 4-minutes remaining in the 3rd-qtr, the Jazz strung together a run where Brewer followed a Carlos Boozer 3pt-play with back-to-back layups to bring the Jazz within 4 and force the Nuggets to call for time.

Brewer’s hustle and athleticism re-energized a capacity crowd at Energy Solutions Arena and the game would be a see-saw affair the rest of the way. A slew of wild plays gave the Nuggets a 1-point lead with 45-seconds left, but twice in the final 2-minutes Carlos Boozer regained the lead for the Jazz with his 2 FT’s putting Utah ahead for good 112-111 with 31.9 seconds remaining.

Boozer finished with 25 points and 19 rebounds, Deron Williams added 16 points and 12 assists, Mehmet Okur scored 14 and the Jazz also received a whopping 46 points off the bench (including 13 by Gordon Giricek, 12 by Brewer and 11 by Matt Harpring).

Odds&Ends:

• Now that’s what a real Jazz crowd sounded like.
• Jerry Sloan used five different defenders on Melo in an attempt to wear him down, guarding him with Kirilenko, Harpring, Derek Fisher, Brewer and even Paul Millsap
• The Nuggets were steadily gaining momentum in the 3rd-qtr when Carmelo Anthony completely flubbed a wide-open layup in transition, much to the crowd’s delight. There are few things Jazz fans enjoy more than taunting Melo, and that really brought them back into the game.
• Kevin O’Connor, who was often deeply involved in games, was really fired up in the 2nd-half. If you watch him after Denver timeouts at 82-78 3:09 3rd-Qtr and 91-87 0:00 3rd-Qtr – he’s out of his seat enthusiastically fist-pumping.
• Jerry Sloan closed the game with a “big lineup” where rookie Paul Millsap played up front along with Boozer and Okur. The backcourt featured Deron Williams at point and either Brewer or Matt Harpring at SG.
• This game was a reminder that Carlos Boozer was really good offensively. In 2006-07 he was one of the 8 best players in the NBA and even with the emergence of Deron Williams, Booze was still the leader on a Jazz team that would advance to the Conference Finals. Boozer was a beast on the boards – and on the foul resulting in his game-winning FT’s Nene tried to bear-hug him to keep him off the glass.
• Few things are more enjoyable about Jazzbasketball than beating Denver while listening to longtime Nuggets broadcaster Scott Hasitngs whine about it.

_______________________________________

Utah’s win was the 5th of a 6-game winning streak they would build over the Nuggets spanning from 2005-07. The Jazz would take 3 of the 4 games in 2007-08 and in 2010 upset 4th-seeded Denver in a 6-game playoff series despite missing Kirilenko and Okur to injury. The Nuggets averaged 51 wins between 2006-10 but the Jazz routinely caused them problems – taking advantage of Denver’s porous defense with superior offensive efficiency and scoring punch that often out-executed Denver’s own high-powered offense that was more free-wheeling and isolation oriented. Nearly all Jazz/Nuggets games in those years were high-scoring, exciting and emotional – and this was one of the best.

Tonight’s Nuggets/Jazz game figures to be anything but a classic, but still important for a Jazz team on the brink of losing their season. After 3 wire-to-wire blowout losses in their last 4 games, the Jazz need to make this somewhat of a competitive game. Another listless start (on national TV no less) and things could get ugly very quickly in a division rivalry that once treated us to a thrilling style of basketball.

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