From the Milton Sports Guy:
Jazz 104 Raptors 91
I don’t know what was worse, the Raptors channeling their ‘inner Leafs’ in falling behind early by as much as 19, or impressively clawing back to within a point in the fourth quarter before a horrendous stretch in which they went scoreless for over six minutes which the Jazz capitalized on, running away with an easy win.
For me, it was the 4th quarter brick fest.
In what was a rout of a contest for Utah now seriously up for grabs — inconceivable given their huge early lead and the Raps’ inept D — the Raptors began forcing jumper after jumper over this extended period, refusing to go inside and attack the paint. Oh yeah, and we should mention they simultaneously stopped playing any semblance of D at this point also — after holding the Jazz to 28% shooting in the third, they went back to playing their usual craptastic brand of porous defensive basketball.
The result was an ugly span of six minutes and 50 seconds which basically handed over the win to the 5-6 Jazz who were banged up and struggling coming into this game.
The shots were flat (looking much like the exhausted Bulls a week ago at the ACC), which I suppose was to be expected on the 2nd night of a back-to-back to conclude this tough road trip. However, it was puzzling as to why they didn’t try to change things up. Mind you, some of the shots were good looks which normally might have been knocked down – but still, when this team is in doubt, the ball should always find it’s way into Bosh who usually does something productive.
Speaking of the Raps’ big free-agent-to-be, he was back in top form after an off-night in Denver. He shredded the Jazz for 32/17. The other bright spot was the play of Marco Belinelli, who almost singlehandedly carried the team back from a huge deficit to within one point in the third, on a series of clutch jumpers, slick drives to the basket, a buzzer-beating trey and all-around energetic play. Andrea Bargnani was very ‘comme-ci, comme-ca.’ He recorded a double-double, yet seemed invisible again for long stretches and struggled mightily with his shot.
The ugly was Jose Calderon who only finished with 2 assists and played some horrific D, unable to even remotely contain or slow down Deron Williams who carved him up all night. Jarrett Jack struggled again in all areas — his jumper, on D and he took one of the strangest, most awkward shots in Raptor history at one point. I’m still baffled by Jack, who was fairly impressive last year in Indiana putting up points and eventually displacing T.J. Ford as the starting PG there — I’m still hopeful he’ll turn it around and that he’s just having a tough time finding a rhythm with his new group of teammates — although I think RaptorNation is losing patience quickly. Hedo Turkoglu also struggled with his shot and looked to be labouring out there. Not a good sign for BC’s 55 million-dollar man.
For the Jazz, Deron Williams was his usual self, Boozer was dominant and Kirilenko was efficient. Rookies Eric Maynor and Ty Lawson also looked impressive.
Oh yeah, and the Jazz hadn’t played since last Saturday, so they were fresh. And if Jerry Sloan has that many days to prepare, you’re usually screwed.
It’s back to TDot for the 5-7 Raptors now, with a toughie next against the Heat, who are performing much better than I had thought they would. Dwyane Wade has been, well, Dwyane Wade, but who would have thought they’d be getting any kind of production out of our boy Jermaine O’Neal?
It should be a good game and look for lots of Bosh-to-Miami talk over the next few days from all the usual media suspects.
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The Milton Sports Guy is a regular contributor to MiltonSearch.com
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