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.

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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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Draft Reflections: Stern vs Dan Patrick, and Ronnie Brewer

Ronnie Brewer may have been my favorite draft pick ever. Not speficially because of his play (Ronnie was a solid rotation player for the Jazz who fit very nicely into their system), but because of the hilarious exchange between Dan Patrick and David Stern that preceded his selection. In all the years of televised drafts, it’s hard to recall a more amusing snarkfest between a commissioner and television host.

Now back to Ronnie Brewer.

By his second season Brewer was Utah’s starting 2-guard and developed into a very solid albeit limited role-player. He had world-class athleticism, was a great teammate, a solid defender, a good passer, a great cutter, and fantastic open-court player – but he just couldn’t shoot. He could make the 16-footer but didn’t take them often or make them consistently. Utah was able to mask that weakness by possessing one of the premier shooting bigs in the league in Mehmet Okur. In Utah’s vaunted high screen-roll – Okur filled the “Jeff Hornacek” role as the 3pt-shooter who rolled up on the weakside and Brewer became the dive-man who cut to the rim. It worked beautifully in 2007-08 with Brewer shooting a gaudy 55.8% from the field and averaging 12.0 points per game as part of the league’s #1-offense. Those numbers also translated into the 2008 posteason in which Brewer averaged 10.2 points on 52.0% shooting.

Although Brewer would shoot over 50% in his first three seasons with the Jazz, his lack of shooting-range was magnified when Okur’s body began to break down. Okur missed most of Utah’s 2009 first-round playoff series against the Lakers with a hamstring injury and Brewer’s limitations were accentuated by Kobe Bryant’s unwillingness to defend Brewer outside of 10-feet in half-court sets. Bryant sagged off Brewer and with another streaky perimeter shooter at SF in Andrei Kirilenko and a total non-shooter at center in Jarron Collins – defenses were able to focus all of their attention to collapsing on all-stars Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer in the paint which fouled up many of Utah’s sets.

As shown below, Brewer’s primary scoring production came as a paint-finisher where from 2006-10 he converted a stellar 64.4% of his field goal attempts within 10-feet of the basket. He also shot an extraordinary percentage of his shots from point-blank range. (By comparison, in his Jazz tenure only 49.0% of Al Jefferson’s shot attempts have come from within 10-feet of the basket).

Ronnie Brewer Shot Breakdown
	Overall	FG% 10-ft	% of FG Att	FG% Outside
Season	FG%	or closer	Inside 10-ft	10-ft
2006-07	52.8%	66.7%	63.7%	28.6%
2007-08	55.8%	65.6%	61.4%	40.4%
2008-09	50.8%	63.2%	54.5%	36.1%
2009-10	49.5%	63.8%	53.4%	31.5%

It also shows that playing with the Deron-Kirilenko-Boozer-Okur unit clicking on all cylinders in 2007-08 was when Brewer was his most effective. In 2008-09 Deron, Boozer, and Okur missed a combined 69 games and Brewer’s point-blank looks declined. That continued into 2009-10 where Okur’s minutes dipped from the 33-34 range to 29 as his durability and effectiveness began to slip. With Brewer set for free agency in 2010 and a roster featuring five capable wings (Brewer, Kirilenko, C.J. Miles, Kyle Korver and rookie Wes Matthews) who all deserved minutes – management shipped Brewer at the trade deadline to Memphis for a protected 1st-round pick that was used in their acquisition of Al Jefferson (the Grizzlies’ pick ended up being F Donatas Motiejunas whose rights were traded from Minnesota to Houston).

Ronnie Brewer has played on 4 teams since being traded and has yet to find a role or system that fit his abilities as well as Jerry Sloan’s system. He was a solid draft pick, a quality Jazz player and a great teammate – and he gave NBA fans the greatest gift of all: an all-out snarkfest between David Stern and Dan Patrick.

I’d be satisfied with a similar haul from this year’s 14th-overall pick – particularly with this being David Stern’s final draft as commissioner.

Come on Bill Simmons, pick a fight with Stern! You know you want to!

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