all PGs/head on williams (you do what you can, plus luther should know deron) mcgrady on brewer (save mcgrady's energy for offense) scola/battier on kirilenko (weak defender on an opportunist scorer) hayes on boozer (since boozer doesn't have outside range, keeps scola in reb. position) scola/landry on okur (strongest guy out there, i worry about landry remembering to cover 3) -hayes/harris on korver/millsap -hayes/woods/deke on harpring to take the punishment -play woods over deke... deke won't leave the paint, which lets utah's bigs hit midrange j's all day -landry must step up the defensive game, he's too valuable on offense to not play -drive at deron all day long, try to go through him to take him out of the game -no flopping -give out hard fouls
I watch most of the Rockets games and actually went to about two dozen this season. I simply cannot remember the last hard foul our TEAM has given on anyone. Boki tearing Malone's jersey? Deke elbowing Lebron? C'Mon Rockets, it's the playoffs, an injured Deron Williams gets a pass going to the basket. When will someone take a hard foul and knock him down? Is that asking too much? What about playing Novak on Korver? I know he's overmatched on defense, but he can offset the three's, and he might be able to stay on him at the arc, he is smart enough to realize that's all he'd have to do defensively. It's one way to get him on the court for some minutes.....
We have Yao and Tmac....would you trade our two for theirs? The problem is we are injured....they were in the lottery when Boozer was out a couple years ago..... And Utah is no threat to win it all, they are still lagging behind the Lakers, Spurs, Suns and Hornets. DD
I don't understand why we don't just start harrassing Deron before halfcourt. They really have no one else who can run an offense, not even on the bench. Double team him (PG + 1) and force it to give him up early. It's too late now, but this could be valuable experience for our guys.
This isn't true. You need to show me this trend of yours, because this is simply not true. They have only lost 1 freaking home game in 2008. That is their trend. Since January 1st, there is no identifiable trend to Utah other than they are almost unbeatable at home, and nearly all their losses come on the road. they blow running teams out at home and they blow out plodding teams. It doesn't matter. They are one of the best running teams in the league, if you make that the percentage strategy for them to play. They are the most balanced offense in the league. They can run...they can play half court...they control the tempo...not the opponents.
The problem is that Utah's defense is so good at transition defense and getting set quickly that there are only 1 or 2 teams who can run them off the court - and those teams are the fastest/quickest teams in the league. We clearly can't do that, unless we make drastic changes like make T-Mac the PG and Brooks attack the basket relentlessly. I'm even happy for T-Mac to play PG because he would have more success defending Deron than anyone else. Since T-Mac can't score (for whatever reason, don't feel like debating) then we might as well make maximum use of him on defense and passing - areas where Utah can't minimize his effectiveness. Plus, I would rather have him make 5 of 10 shots than 9 of 25. Give the ball up. If it's true that he's defended way too tightly then stop shooting 25 times and give the ball up and defend/rebound/pass/block/steal. Go back to his last season in Toronto.
Who? Golden State? Utah runs circles around them....it's silly. look it up. Dallas? Utah has successfully slowed down Dallas their last two gams Denver? Blown out by 25+ in last two, 3-0 against them in last 3. Phoenix w/Marion? Utah blew them out by 108-86 last game they played with Marion. SA? Utah destroyed them last two home games. There is no trend to SA vs Utah except home court. NO and Paul? Nope. Utah held them to 66 points at New Orleans in their most critical game of the year in the last week.
I was thinking about this a lot last game, and I think with Rafer back it might be worth a shot to throw Tmac down in the low post early on in the game. Let him save some energy, yet still have him where he can operate and run a large part of the offense down low. Hopefully he'll have his legs late in the game. Scolalandry would also benefit from lots of easy buckets in this scheme, as Tmac is doubled up.
You're absolutely right, the Jazz have few flaws. But the truth is that they lose when they are away and the other team runs fastbreaks well. For teams to run fastbreaks well they need to rebound well, pass well and finish well. There are few team that boast a perfect fastbreak, and those are the teams that can be Utah when at home. Utah in Salt Lake, I agree, is unbeatable.
I don't agree. I don't see where this comes from. Nevermind, doesn't look like you're going to show why non-fastbreaking teams beat them as much as fastbreaking teams. Fact is: Sloan has a great transition PG who is excellent at low post early offense, excellent transition 3pt shooters, wing finishers in Brewer and Kirilenko, and an all-star calibre trailer in Boozer. Utah can run with anyone if they so choose. Just like Stockton's teams and the 80s Celtics weren't known as astbreaking teams but could do it when they wanted too. And without a doubt, Utah is better at fastbreaking than we are. For us to force the tempo into a running game is not something Adelman is going to do, and he's a master of it. Give it up. It's a recipe for certain death for us.
Might seem like a cheap strategy, but I really think they should foul Williams hard the entire game. When he was out last game, Utah completely broke down. At that point I thought he was not coming back and was sure we would win the game. And then he came back... It seems he has some residual of an injury. Rox should work on that. If they could get him out of the game today and have him miss the next game, they are back in business.
