We Miss a Piece

Jazz Game,

- Let's face it. We miss a piece to be the Champion - an experienced Centre, 7-ft or above, who puts a lot of efforts in defense. We don't need him to do any mid-range jumpers at all because the Jazz system is all about creating easy baskets, as long as he is capable of doing layups and dunks. I don't think neither Koufos nor Fesenko can fill the spot if we want to be the Champion next season.

- And I hope the Team will enjoy their next game in LA.

Expected Loss, but Unexpected Fight by Jazz

Jazz Game,

- Again, we don't have Okur, Millsap and Boozer. We are landslided in rebounds. Yet we fight till 2OT, not bad.

- Fesenko is not playing particular well despite the nice statistics - 12 pts, 11 rebs, 3 blks, 2 asts, 1 stl in 34 mins. His extend minutes is purely because Koufos is in foul troubles for whole game, and he has a sizable body who can stop Yao a little bit plus the fact that Yao started to get tired starting from the end of Q4. For his 12 pts, just simply because the Jazz system creates some easy baskets for him. Nonetheless, we should praise his good effort.

- Knight does well in controlling the tempo of the game, and can give some nice passes. I like it. But when he is wide / relatively open, he needs to shoot better. He is 1-9 in last five games. Am I too harsh?

- By the way, even we are extremely short-handed, Coach Sloan did not play Price and Almond a single minute.

Others,

- Now Diaw is flirting with Triple-Double almost every game, what a versatile player. I wouldn't mind having him in the Jazz squad.

Unexpected Win

Jazz Game,

- Okur, Millsap, Boozer are out. And we get this win. Bravo.

- Koufos had a great game – 18 pts, 8 rebs

- Fesenko did better than we all expect – 8 pts, 4 rebs, 3 blks

Others,

- Celtics 2-game losing streak, after 19-game winning streak. Warriors is a team with surprises, partly because Captain Jack is back on the lineup.

Jazz, seriously short-handed, continues the slump.

Jazz Game,

- Okur is out with back spasm. Sloan tried Fesenko for 4 mins.

- Millsap's 15 streak on double-double ends, due to losing some time on ... injury treatment.

- When will we get healthy enough to win?

- Jazz would have lost more if their FTs are not falling. Luckily today they have above-par performance (23/27).

Okur is back to Turkey for family issue

Jazz excuse Okur so he can be with family in Turkey. Okur's agent said Okur will be missing for around 1 week but nothing is sure yet...It will be a tough road trip.

On a positive note, Koufos and Fesenko will have more minutes…

It is reported that originally Fesenko needs to fly to Toronto for visa issue, however, his agent is trying to work around it because everyone knows that it is a rare opportunity for Fesenko that play for 10+ minutes in a real NBA game.

For Koufos, I hope he learnt something of his two appearances vs Clippers, in which he got blocked by Chris Kaman in both games.

O.J. Mayo, two consecutive games with 30+ points... He is definitely catching my attention.

The Northwest Crown Fight? Not quite, at least for this game.

Jazz 93-80 Trail Blazers

Highlights:

AK looks very comfortable to come out of bench, and actually I always like his versatile talent, despite of his lackluster performance in 06/07 Season.

Fesenko’s 10 point, 10 rebound would give him an edge on Koufos (who get shouted about shooting too much, 0/5 from the field). But be aware that it is not a competitive game.

Sloan summarized the game concisely – “You can't get excited about this game. Their best team was sitting on the bench."

Indeed...Boxscore of the Game

One thing for sure, the surge of Portland Trail Blazers will intensify the West Coast / Northwest division competition. Let's do a stock count on its roster - Brandon Roy, Aldridge, Travis Outlaw, Oden + a bunch of supporting cast - Webster, Blake, Przybilla, LaFrentz, Frye, and more importantly - Rudy Fernandez.

You watched him in Beijing this summer, and probably you were impressed by him in the Gold Medal match with the Dream / Re-deem Team – huge shots one by one, and big dunk despite of Dwight Howard's challenge from behind.

At this point, I believe they could be in Playoff.

Pre-season

First of all, thanks for reading this. I hope this place could gather a group of Jazz fans in Hong Kong, Asia or even in the world. Having said that, enthusiastic NBA fans are more than welcome.

Back to the main theme - Utha Jazz, starts the pre-season by beating Lakers (hope it bodes well :P ). I had a glance on that, and looks like Jazz becomes a better team than last year. Our bench depth can easily make others envy.

I want to highlight a few points here,

Ronnie Brewer gained 13 pounds (should be, and hopefully mostly muscles) this year. He is getting fitter and even if his skills do not have a leap, he could do a lot of damages by constantly attacking the rims.

CJ Miles apparently has become more mature. If Brewer is not in top form, CJ Miles can replace him, with the same style of playing, though honestly he can't attack the rim and run backdoor as effective as Brewer.

Kuofos, Fesenko will fight the back-up Centre place with veteran Collins. I can't see much of Kuofos yet because after he hits his very first shot, he hurt his hamstring and not even show up in the second game vs Suns. Fesenko did not impress Sloan since the start of the training camp. However, Sloan did say some good things about him after the loss vs Suns. But...he said something immature that make me think he may not have the mental strength to compete in the NBA level yet. Here are what he said after his 12-min match-up with Shaq,

"It was really hard, I realize that I am not big, I am not strong. I am small girl compared to Shaq. So I have a lot of work to do - I have a lot of work to do - and I need to start right now if I want to make the team, at least this year." - small girl...come on, may be you should use a better word... it is not humble, it is not a respect to Shaq, it just shows you are not mentally ready...

"One time after I push him in the back, he look at me and this look I will see probably in my nightmares."- nightmares...how can you compete in NBA when you are scared by a look of Shaq...

I hope this is just a poor choice of word and a lack of media interview training for him. But I do admit that he is a hardworking player, and looks like he also knows how to pass the ball around.

Anyway, back to the point, Fesenko is the 2nd year player, hopefully will get more mins than Kuofos because Sloan really seldom uses rookie. (I am not completely sure this time though because Sloan did praise him pretty much during the training camp) At the end of the day, perhaps Sloan will still keep using Collins for the first 20% of the season and play it by ear.

Key message is, our bench is really strong.

Two more notes,

Brevin Knight does not impress me yet, however, strongly believe that he is better than Jason Hart.

By the way, I am not a big fans of Boozer because I think his soft defense was the main reason for our losses in playoffs in last two seasons.

That's about it for this post, hope could share more with everyone soon. Stay tuned.