If any sophisticated Jazz fan were to plan a shortlist of how Sloan was going to throw away the series against the Rockets[i], it would contain three basic components: 1) Play Harpring over Andrei Kirilenko 2) Play Fisher over Ronnie Brewer and Giricek 3) Rely on Boozer far too much. Basically, the same things that botched the last 20 games of the season.
Instead of pointing this out, the SLC sports media wrote columns stating the Jazz simply couldn’t score enough points in Game One. Pretty sophisticated analysis, I’d have to say. The Jazz didn’t score enough points to win…wow, will someone please hire me to write sports journalism full time?! I wouldn’t even have to watch the games, much less write the columns. It would be entirely possible to farm the work out to some Indian tech center.
Game One was a low-scoring affair decided by defense, as are most playoff games. You don’t need a lot of points. In a defense-controlled game, how are you going to make stops when your primary line up consists of these five players? -- Williams, Fisher, Harpring, Boozer, Okur.
Among those five, there is only one competent defender, that being Deron. And, as much as I love the man-in-desperate-need-of-a-good-nickname[ii] , he is only adequate. There are only three good defenders on the entire roster: AK, Millsap, and Brewer—in that order. Giricek’s bizarre Croatian folk dancing can distract his man occasionally as well.
Let’s unpack this a little further. Millsap is the eighth, or ninth rotation man on the roster. His primary function has been to back up Boozer and spend a little time at small forward or center. Sloan only uses Brewer when the Alzheimer kicks in and forgets that he knows about his secret. (Maybe, next year Jerry will lose it completely and Brewer will actually start.) Even though Andrei Kirilenko has literally been the sole consistent defensive presence on a team that won 51 games, he gets no credit.
[i] If I hadn’t moved, experienced a major work schedule change, and had no internet for half of the previous week you have to believe I would have made this post.
[ii] This column is coming soon.
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