"You Gotta Love It Baby" Official Jazz thread

[MarkGrace]

Gut check game. Need to win this without our two best players. Not a great start to the 2nd half.

Need to win so Deron will cut that ugly beard.

[MarkGrace]

Sap is ballin'. 23/9/5 through 3 quarters.

[MarkGrace]

Clank, clank, clank from the FT line.

[Commando]

Sap for 30 points? gyeah

[MarkGrace]

Is Sap killin' it tonight or what? Wow.

[MarkGrace]

Kings backcourt has combined for 22 ft's and 51 points...so far They don't have another player in double figures.

[MarkGrace]

21/32 from the FT line.

Any chance the Mavs can send their FT coach and sports psychologist our way?

[MarkGrace]

23/36 now.

[Bastage]

Freaking Gaines and freaking Matthews. Props to KOC and the scouts for finding these guys.

[MarkGrace]

And extra props to whoever unearthed Goran Suton. What a find!

[smokymountainrain]

Tonight is one example of why I don't think the Jazz would miss a beat without Boozer. Wait, I know they wouldn't miss a beat without Boozer because they didn't have him for a long stretch last year and they didn't miss him in terms of wins/losses or scoring.

But back to tonight's example of why they are at least the same or better without him...Without Boozer, Sloan is forced to play both Sap and AK big minutes.

40 minutes for AK tonight and 43 for Millsap. Both are better defensive players than Boozer, while AK is a more efficient scorer and Millsap equals Boozer in terms of scoring efficiency. The more those two are on the court, the better.

With Boozer in the lineup this season, AK averages just 28 minutes, while Sap averages just 26. Both should be in the 35+ range.

[hostile]

Freaking Gaines and freaking Matthews. Props to KOC and the scouts for finding these guys.

Two undrafted rookies on the floor, during crunch time. Very impressive. Now make your free throws.

[Coastal Ute]

Gaines deserves more playing time. 'Nuff said.

[MarkGrace]

Tonight is one example of why I don't think the Jazz would miss a beat without Boozer. Wait, I know they wouldn't miss a beat without Boozer because they didn't have him for a long stretch last year and they didn't miss him in terms of wins/losses or scoring.

SMR, what is your basis for saying you know they wouldn't miss a beat? Last year the Jazz had a win% of .578 with Sap as a starter -- that's far below what they've experienced with Booz as a starter. This year they're at .609 with Booz, in the '08 season .659 and in '07 .622. I'm not going to add up their win % last year w/o Booz because I don't have the time, but those 2.5 seasons right there are enough to indicate that we've played at a significantly higher level with Booz as a starter than we did with Sap.

And beyond that, the Jazz best play with Sap coincided with his worst stretch as a starter. We all remember the Sap who pulled down 19 consecutive double-doubles as a starter, but what seems to be lost on people was how much he struggled his last 13 games. During that stretch he failed to break the 20 point barrier even once, and only pulled out 4 double-double outings. The Jazz won 9 out of 13 over that stretch, including a streak where they took 8 out of 10.

Whether Sap's slowdown was due to fatigue having never played those types of minutes, or simply due to the fact that teams were now preparing for Millsap the starter not the afterthought, the fact of the matter remains that with the record they posted over 38 games plus those variables it's very shaky ground to be declaring you know something will happen.

But back to tonight's example of why they are at least the same or better without him...Without Boozer, Sloan is forced to play both Sap and AK big minutes.

With Boozer in the lineup this season, AK averages just 28 minutes, while Sap averages just 26. Both should be in the 35+ range.

Again, one game of AK for 40 minutes was nice, but there's no long-term evidence to suggest this is a legitimate trend. I'm not going to add up AK's minutes for the 38 stretch that Sap started, but it covered basically the middle of December to the middle of February. Over that time AK, by month, AK played 28.3, 31.9 and 29.2. At best he picked up a few minutes. And even with Booz in the lineup, this stuff is still w/in Jerry's discretion -- he could play AK 35 mins a night if he wanted to, he's already done it ten times this year with Booz around.

40 minutes for AK tonight and 43 for Millsap. Both are better defensive players than Boozer, while AK is a more efficient scorer and Millsap equals Boozer in terms of scoring efficiency. The more those two are on the court, the better.

I'm not going to dispute that both are better defensive players, I think that much is clear. But neither is very close to being the offensive player, either. In AK's case you can cite PPS (and ignore TS%, which is as much an offensive efficiency state, and Booz is better), but AK playing as a guy nobody is guarding is clearly different than AK playing as a guy you're counting on to score every night. With Sap, yes they have comparable PPS and TS%, but again, this guy has played mostly as an afterthought, not a guy teams are keying in on (and again, the argument could be made that once they did last year Sap started to disappear).

Having watched all three of these guys quite a bit, I just don't see where either AK or Sap has the offensive skill to play arguably the most important position in a 1-4 offense. Again, the added defense is nice, but the playoffs have shown us that we have to improve not only our D, but our O -- Deron and Booz have been our only consistent scorers under playoff pressure, and that's just not going to get it done.

I get that you hate Booz, he's a prick and I hate him too. But we're still much closer to being a contender with him than without him. With him we just need a pairing of a defensive 5 -- you remove him and not only do we need a defensive 5, but we need one with some offensive skill, and that's going to be much harder to come by.

I like Sap and think he's a great luxury to have as a 6th man and fill-in starter, but I don't think we're better by dropping Booz and adding him as a permanent 4. I've already said that my ideal frontline rotation would be a guy like Haywood for 30 mins, Booz for 36, and Sap for 30. I really think that could get it done in the frontcourt.

[MarkGrace]

I should also add that with the current lineup I'm not opposed to experimenting with a Booz/Sap starting 5/4. Okur just sucks.