So we'll wind up right back where we started. An NBA season that started with a Stephen Jackson Shot (the type with a gun, not with a basketball) will end with another Big Shot Bob Shot (cheap shot). In between, was alot of David Stern talk about cleaning up the league's image and eliminating whining and complaining. Great move! Remember All-Star week in Vegas? Remember the Kobe suspension and the subsequent "oh we'll looking to clean up the game" response? Remember the Sonics looking for a new home. Good thing hockey can't figure out how to attract viewers. Then the NBA got lucky. They got the Warriors going on an March Madness like cinderella run. They got a Phoenix/San Antonio gem of a 2nd round matchup. They got the Suns battling back and making what looked like another Spurs cake-walk into a realy series that could go either way.

Just when you thought not even the NBA could mess this up, they did exactly that. I applauded the league for not taking any action against Bruce Bowen, against Jason Richardson and Baron Davis. Hard, and cheap? Definitely. But the gray area between intent to injure and frustration and hard play was tough to interpret. I was happy the league decided not to intervene and let the series be decided on the court. Then they go and pull this.

Let's pretend the body check never happened and Cheap Shot Bob is still Big Shot Bob. We're talking about Steve Nash with two of the greatest assists of the year. We're talking about Amare Stoudemire stepping up and scoring right in Duncan's face. We're taking about the Suns finally going back the small lineup that gives them such an advantage. Playing Amare at center, Shawn Marion at power forward and a 3-guard lineup with Nash, Bell and Barbosa finally allowed the Suns to break lose and spread the Spurs defense and play the uptempo style they need to play to win. (Duncan battling foul trouble most of the 4th quarter also played a role, but Nash and Amare pick n'roll with the court spread with 3 shooters is virtually unstoppable)

Instead, we're talking about two guys who did the unthinkable: they stepped onto the court when their teammate was thrown into the scorer's table with less than 30 seconds left. Forget the fact that Stoudemire and Diaw got no more than 15 feet down the sideline, forget the fact that Duncan and Bowen did virtually the same thing in a 2nd quarter incident where Francisco Elson was undercut, forget the interpretation of the rule. This is not about the rule. It's about David Stern's greed for power. No question the right thing to do would have been to say "you know what, sure they technically they stepped onto the floor but Tim Duncan did the same thing. But the important thing is nothing serious happened so let's the guys on the floor decide this insteand of Stu Jackson and myself."

That would have made too much sense. Instead David Stern, who was critisized for not taking action against Bowen, against Davis, against Richardson, felt letting this slide would mean losing the iron fist he only thinks he rules by. After all, remember waaaaay back when he was talking about eliminating all the whining and complaining? Yeah that worked real well. For once I wish Joey Crawford was still officiating just to throw some of the Spurs out for excessive whining. Just watch them after any call. It's ridiculous.

The bottom line is the biggest and most important shot of the playoffs will be a cheap shot. I don't care that Horry's suspension is two games. San Antonio could lose Horry for the rest of eternity and still come out on top of this deal. Unless a miracle happens and the Suns can pull this series out, the Spurs will be off to the finals (the last time the Jazz won in San Antonio Thurl Bailey was still playing with them). All because of the clutch play of Cheap Shot Bob.

 

First observation is this was Utah's best shot at winning in Houston, and they just blew it down the stretch (more on this later).

-The difference for Houston was their role players finally made a basket. The production of their role players (Howard, Head, and Battier combined for 35 pts) out*played Utah's bench mob (Harpring, Giricek and Millsap only had 19 pts).

-Andrei Kirilenko has finally broke out of his slump. He left his fingerprints all over the 1st quarter, blocking shots, deflecting passes and completely confusing Yao Ming. In the 3rd, he finally got his offense going. First he hit a little turn-around over Battier. That gave him the confidence to hit two mid-range jumpers, all-in-all: 3-3, 6 pts in the 3rd (he only had 2 fg in the other four games combined). In the 4th he cut down the lane and Boozer fed him for a dunk, and also returned the favor with two gorgeous passes to Boozer cutting down the lane. Kirilenko was much more active in Games 3 and 4, now if finally started showing up in the box score.

-Yao Ming continues to underachieve. After two awful games in Utah where he let Mehmet Okur out physical him, he continued to settle for fall-away jumpers while looking like he's never seen a double-team in his life. Thank goodness the Rockets one, because it's almost unforgivable the way he's allowed Okur to slow him offensively. Perhaps his biggest accomplishment this series is the fact that he's tired Okur so much from having to lean on him that Okur has no legs in his 3pt shot (just 4-25 in the series).

Finally, Jerry Sloan and the Jazz just absolutely thew it away down the stretch. They were down 85-92 with 3 min left when they pulled Derek Fisher who was getting burned by T-Mac and went with the bigger line-up of Deron Williams, Matt Harpring, Andrei Kirikenko, Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur.

They then proceeded to score 6 straight points. They scored 3 times in a row by running high-screen roll with Deron and Booze. Battier had to rotate to pick up Boozer rolling down the lane, getting Harp two open jumpers on the baseline. The third time, Deron made the extra side-pass to AK on the wing who found Boozer cutting to the basket behind Yao. Then they run a cross-screen to free Boozer and pick up a foul. Then they run high screen roll and get Okur a wide-open 3 that rimmed out. AK gets the rebound, and in the scramble they never reset their offense, and Harp had to force a jumper with Battier in his face. Then, only down 2pts, 2pts meaning they didn't need a 3!, and Sloan takes AK out (who was passing it beautifly in the 4th) and puts Derek Fisher in, going away from the line-up that got them back in the game and had that 6-0 run. They don't run pick n-roll, they give the ball to Boozer at the 3pt line and have Deron go down and set a pick (he didn't actually even screen anyone) with Harp and Fisher coming off. Fish gets the ball at the 3pt line and does something that's happened much too often and makes every Jazz fan cringe. He ducks his head and drives. Offensive foul. Close call, but the home-team definitely deserved it.

The point is, high-screen roll with Boozer got Utah back in the game, but on the game's biggest possessions they went away from it. It's one thing not to call time-out when they know what we're going to run (high screen-roll) like the back of their hand, but it made no sense for Jerry not to take a timeout when their offense broke down or they were running something different. Bizzarre, and they wasted a spetacular performance by Boozer.

 

Boozer played like a true superstar. He displayed the competitive greatness that separates the good players from the great ones. Over the course of this series he has developed the mindset where he says "You know what Yao, forget about worrying about your size. You need to worry about how you're going to guard me." He mixed up his game beautifully, knocking down mid-range jumpers when Yao backs off and driving by and dunking it on Yao when he closes out. He's altered this matchup from one of size to one of skill and movement.

He played like a true superstar down the stretch and gave Utah a great opportunity to win this game. It's a shame they never gave him a chance to win it for them.

Observations:

-Boozer did what your franchise player has to do, he came out and owned the 1st quarter, 15 pts, hitting 7 of his first 9 shots, most 15 foot jumpers over Yao Ming. He was a stud, with his 41 points. Had he gotten the "T-Mac treatment" (more on this later) he would have approached 50. Maybe his best game ever.

-TMac and Yao again played/shot awful in the first half, and Houston was only down by 2. The uglier and lower scoring the game, the better for Houston. If Utah can get this series in the 100's, I really don't think Houston can keep pace.

-Jazz continue to let Houston lull them to sleep in a half-court, late 90's grind-it-out game. If they would look to push the tempo they would leave Yao, Mutombo and Juwan Howard in their dust

-Mehmet Okur continues to struggle. Just 4-23 in the first two games. It appears he's gonna be our "Casper" (disappearing act) player this year, much to my worst fears. More on this in the coming days. If he give us nothing besides tough defense, he did play Yao really tough and was on the bad end of alot of tough if not horrible calls, but Utah can't win if he doesn't give us double digits.

-Virtually every 2nd-half call went the Rockets way, some good calls, some close and others absolutely horrendous. The fact that Utah shot ZERO free throws in the 3rd quarter doesn't begin to tell the story. Yao can do whatever he wants (travel, dislodge with his shoulder (didn't he used to complain Shaq did this?), sprout roots in the paint) and he gets away with it. You can't touch T-Mac without a foul being called, and sometimes you don't even touch him and it's a foul. No doubt in my mind the League wants Houston and it's "Stars" to advance, so they'll do their best to see that happens. The fact that Utah's first home playoff game in 3 years was one of only two to get the NBATV-diss should tell you what they think about the Jazz.

-Houston Rockets fans are absolutely classless. As Deron Williams lay on the cort with what looked to be a serious head-injury, the derogatory chants revealed their true colors. It's tough when you show less class than Utah fans, congratulations Houston you just did. Classless classless Rockets fans. The only more noteworthy item to take note of is 87 year old TNT announcer DickStockton saying it was good sportsmanship of the Rockets to give him an ovation. How you confuse an ovation boo's and "Utah Sucks" chants is beyond me.

-Finally this was some great experience for Utah. Now they know what to expect in the playoffs, the physical play and more importantly they "Star Treatment" and the tough calls that go against you. Now they can go home and protect their homecourt, where I expect Okur, Kirilenko and Deron Williams to play/shoot much better.

Adjustments Utah must make if they still want to steal a game in Houston:

#1 Offensive Spacing - with the exception of 2 Boozer dunks and an open Okur baseline jumper (he missed it) Utah's screen-roll got their bigs nothing. In the 1st half, Houston was sticking with the screener and going under the screen, giving DWill some open looks. 2nd half, they hedged and often either rotated a guy top-side to DWill or ran a guy across the lane to the screener. Either way, Utah was playing 3-2 on the weakside but except for 2 occasions (a baseline cut by AK which he promptly fumbled because he jumped before he caught it and a cut by Harpring which he also fumbled away from point blank range) they could never take advantage from it. Must have better spacing with Giricek on the wing and whoever's playing SF closer to the baseline. I like all the shots Okur got, Boozer needs to face-up Yao on the left wing from 12 feet and go to work. To much time on the right wing where he's not as comfortable.

#2 Andrei Kirilenko needs to play more. Aside from TMac torching Giri/Fish, in 15 min Kirilenko had 1 blk, a stl, a forced missed layup and 2 deflections resulting in TO's. Also, the more Harpring played the more he started forcing shots. Would like AK to play closer to 25-30 min.

#3 Don't give the ball to Fisher when the shotclock is winding down. Everytime this occured (and it happened WAY TOO MUCH) he shucked off all his teammates and went one-on-one. While it worked in the 2nd qtr, it broke us down in the 3rd and won't help us win this series. Better getting it to Giricek or throwing it inside than letting Fish dribble drive or worse, launch a pullup where he can't even see the basket.

Conclusion: Boozer, Okur, Millsap will all play better. Our FT shooting should improve slightly (this was the difference in Game 1 because Houston shot like #### too). DWill played great in his first game. The way Houston came out (and they looked just awful at times) this looked like our best shot, but we played one of our worst games too. Game 2 is so very winneable. We still have a great shot at stealing homecourt, then we can open it up at Energy Solutions and make it a more of the up-and-down series that can swing things totally in our control.

Extremely disappointing showing by Utah.

-1st realy playoff experience for alot of their guys and it showed. Boozer/Okur combined 6-31 from the field. Ugghh. Kirilenko only 15 min.

-Fisher made the play of the game by blowing a wide-open, you'll never get an easier shot in basketball, layup that totally swung the game in the Rockets favor.

-Deron Wiliams definitely ready for the big stage. Shoulda had a triple double (15 pts, 9 reb, 9 ast) if not for imcompetent play by his teammates.

-Houston having Yao guard Boozer forced Booze to settle for 16 footers, and he couldn't throw the ball in the ocean tonight, just 1-9 in the second half. Of his 4 field goals, two were baseline jumpers in the first 8 minutes of the game, the other two were dunks off feeds from Deron Williams. That's it. Not the way you want to start your first playoff series.

-Also Yao Ming (13-15 FT's) definitely going to get "star treatment." He was coming over everyone's back and there was no call, but if you touch him its a foul. Should be fun.

-1 pt in first half for TMac, Yao misses 10 of his 18 shots, hold rockets to 32 point first half and Utah loses by 9? Not a good sign.

The final night in the NBA's regular season is usually a quiet and odd night, as most playoff teams with their positions set rest their regulars and give their backups extended minutes. Wednesday night should actualy be better than year's past as have not only the majority of the playoff positions been set, but when you factor in that most of the losing teams are trying to lose, this year could be the year you double or triple-check someone's point totals in the box scores.

To give you an idea as to how wacky regular season finales can be, Mark Madsen once took 7 (AS IN THE NUMERICAL VALUE SEVEN) 3-pinters in one game (he missed them all which should register about a 0.002 on the Supriso-Meter and Greg Ostertag scored a career high 25 pts (which should get a snort/chuckle out of recalling your most memorable Greg Ostertag moment (which entails some sort of blown layup, missed dunk or perhaps a missed layup which 'Tag rebounded and followed with a missed dunk). I only use a basketball play because I think the speedo or denture episodes have permeantly been erased from our memories until I just mentioned it, followed by you thinking about your wife, girlfriend, pet gopher or really anything more attractive than Ostertag tossing his teeth cross-court to a trainer or dancing in a speedo.

Anyway, here are some guys who rarely play yet could post some monster numbers in their season finale, followed by fans getting excited about their young player finally arriving, followed by a following season of disappointment:

Detroit: Jason Maxiell - a monster around the basket, could dominate against teams not bringing much intensity

Atlanta: Anthony Johnson/Tyronn Lue - oh wait they play every night

Dallas: How well will 72 yr old Kevin Willis fill the Pavel "I'm the Big Goofy White Guy Who Use To Stand Behind The Mavs' Bench" Podkolzin Role. Seeing as how Willis is 3 times as old and 5 times as strong and was only signed last week, instead let's keep count of how many times his disproportionally short arms hinder his performance.

Houston: Jake Tsakalidas - the plodding Greek center reminds you more and more of a dinasour with every slow, plodding step he takes. Also watch to see if Rafael Araujo, the guy who's gotten thrown out of what seems like the only 2 games he's played in this year (including a summer league game) ends up with Jeff Van Gundy on his shoe.

San Antonio: James White - the guy Bruce Bowen says can dunk 2-handed from the FT line should get a chance to show us that athleticism. Oh, and I don't believe you Bruce.

Utah: Illini basketball fans should get the chance to watch Dee Brown motor while his current and former Illini teammate Deron Williams gets a rest

Portland: Last audition for FA center Jamaal Magloire who is the bigman recipient of the Steve "I Use to be an All-Star But Now I Can't Play a Lick" Francis Award.

Phoenix: Sean Marks probably won't score but if he gets to trade in his suit and chair behind the Suns bench for the orange or purple warm-up Phoenix wears, admission will be more than worth it.