Game 17 vs. Lickers: Salt Lakers (sans Boozer) > Lakers

Dear My Blog, I apologize for sullying your visage with this image. Sincerely, me.

Pre-game Quotage:
** Jerry worries about Jeremy Evans: “He’s got a Camaro that’s got rear-wheel drive. You get out in the snow with one of those and that’s like a pig on ice.” (sltrib)
** Phil Jackass: “[Jerry Sloan]’s going to get the fans, including the referees, involved in this, so be very careful what you ask for.'” (desnews)
(The head coach of the freaking Lakers talking about referee favors…give me a break. And give the dumbass mind games a freaking rest.)
** Deron: “We usually play good against them except for one little stretch, where they just kind of blow us out of the water. We just have to stay poised, and a lot of that is mental. If they make a little run, you can’t hang your heads; you can’t start panicking.” (sltrib)
(Raja, Elson, Watson, and our resident Chief Laker Hater, Ronnie P, wouldn’t let this happen. They wouldn’t stand idly by and just watch the Lakers go on a run. Ronnie P was the only one that actively took a stand against them the past few years, and Raja, Elson and Watson are new additions. We got a shot.)

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To date this season, I have missed birthday gatherings, family meals, and church because of Jazz games. Having to go to work early, today of all days, therefore sucked balls.

This is how the game went for me:
1st quarter: Listening with half an ear and growing more and more disgusted as the Jazz starters come out flatter than Flatty McFlatterson after he’s been flattened by a flatterizer. Score at the end of one: 17-33.

2nd quarter: We can predict these games by now, right? The second unit comes in and the Jazz take off. I cheer wildly but silently for Ronnie P’s huge dunk as the Jazz come roaring back with ROAR (ROnnie/eARl) in the lead. The boss asks me to do something at the 6:08 mark, and I get back to my desk just in time to see Millsap give the Jazz (what I believe to be) our first lead, 46-45 with two minutes to go in the half.

3rd quarter: Work gets in the way and I can again only listen with half an ear, but AK seems to be finally hitting his shots and is at the same time facilitating the offense. Miss the second part of the quarter as I get my stuff together and race outta there.

4th quarter: Finally get to watch the game in the comfort of my own home. You really don’t appreciate how much of a luxury that is unless you’re forced to try to watch the game elsewhere. But I digress, because I should be talking about Ninja Time. Deron absolutely put the team on his shoulders and carried us to the win. There were some issues with the shot clock towards the end there, but that was just the universe offsetting the FT disparity and Gasol and Odom’s attempted murder of AK with 2 seconds left after AK corralled a rebound.

Random Notes
** The Jazz had ten FGs in the fourth quarter. Deron scored four of them and assisted five of them.
** Who dressed him?

** I don’t know who infected who, but none of our bigs dunk no more. AK, Sap, and Big Al are ALWAYS going for layups, which often fall off the rim. Why? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? (I tend to think it’s Big Al’s influence. He doesn’t like alley-oop passes, so maybe he doesn’t like dunking either.)
** Look at that! The Jazz outrebounded the Lakers even without 20-10 Carlos Boozer! Even if they won’t dunk, AK, Sap and Big Al showed up tonight, collecting 23 of the Jazz’s 42 boards.
** S’ingMH at the aforementioned FT disparity. 31-19. And it’s only that “close” because the Lakers started fouling at the end of the game to stop the clock. Take away the last 11 seconds, and the FT disparity was 31-15. In our house. What the hell.
** We all know the Jazz is a family organization. It is, in fact, a family organization to the point where (ex-)players’ kids are on cleanup duty after games. Matty’s son (and I think I saw Memo’s daughter as well) were busy clearing away streamers and confetti after the game. Also, I swear I’m not a stalker.

Post-game Quotage: (KFAN)
** Deron: We’re a much closer team this year. We’ve always had great guys here, and we’ve always been close, but I think this year it’s a lot better.
(I know one or two things. I know Deron was so pissed when Ronnie B got traded that he gave up for four or five games afterwards. And I know he and Kyle were extremely close. Draw your own conclusions not about the Koof.)
** Raja: I came out for shootaround early and I was getting heckled by Laker fans.
(If this describes you, please crawl back into your hole and stay there til you’re instructed otherwise. Kthxbai.)
** ** Phil Jackass: [Deron] gets away with a lot of stuff out there, and did some things out there tonight that were very unusual.
** [Have you noticed a different sense of ownership that Deron has taken with this team?] Derek Fisher: (long pause) Not necessarily.
** [Lots of new faces on this Jazz team, did it seem like you were playing a different Jazz team?] Derek Fisher: No, no.
(FWIW, Kobe answered “yes” and mentioned that Deron now had a bigger leadership role than he did in the past.)

If I could give Carlos Boozer credit when he played well last year (which I did), anyone can give credit to those deserving it no matter how hard it is. That is, unless you are a clashy purple and yellow bag of sour grapes.

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