Friday report
It's been a crazy 48 hours flying home to Salt Lake City and then turning around and heading to Houston. I was comforted upon arrival by this headline in the Houston Chronicle (it was Thursday's paper): "COUNTY GEARS UP FOR EXECUTIONS"
Nice to see some things never change in Harris County. The Jazz are making the equivalent of their third stop on the Texas triangle in the last two weeks, having played in Dallas and San Antonio to close the regular season. That's a lot of Whataburger.
I can report that the team seemed loose at practice. Deron Williams pulled a behind-the-scenes prank on an unnamed, 6-foot-11, Stanford-educated teammate. That teammate in turn vowed revenge in the coming weeks. We'll keep you posted.
Most of the time, Game 1 is a chance for both teams to size up each other for what promises to be a long series. This time, the Rockets have no choice but to come out and try to make a statement in the opener.
They can't afford to drop Game 1 and cough up home-court advantage off the bat. Not with three games to play in Utah. The chatter from the Rockets is they believe their best - - and perhaps only - - chance of winning is if the series goes seven games.
(The Rockets also took note of the Jazz's effort Wednesday in San Antonio and questioned whether they were trying to back into a rematch. They appreciated Jerry Sloan's comments about his team being the underdog as well.)
If Houston has to win Game 1, then the pressure's on Tracy McGrady to deliver the kind of performance he did back on Nov. 1, scoring 47 points and single-handedly ruining the Jazz's home opener after that big balloon drop.
He can't settle for jumpshots and he can't disappear down the stretch like in Game 7. There was a story in the Chronicle on Wednesday revisiting McGrady's famous comment about last year's series being "on me" and the change in his tune this playoffs.
McGrady said he was just trying to take the pressure off his teammates and that it was "on him" because he handled the ball 90 percent of the time in Jeff Van Gundy's offense.
"That's why I said it was on me, because I had to do so much," McGrady said. "This season, it's a lot deeper team. And we got a different style of play. There is a lot more motion on the offensive end. I'm not going to put that phrase on me this year."
If you remember last playoffs, the Rockets were so thin, they only had four - - yes, four - - players score in their 81-67 Game 3 loss to the Jazz. Their bench was outscored 33-0 in the game and starter Chuck Hayes finished scoreless.
That won't be the case this time. The Rockets are a much deeper team. I watched last Friday's victory over Phoenix and Houston won that game not because of McGrady but because of guys like Carl Landry, Bobby Jackson and Aaron Brooks.
We'll see how it goes Saturday night. If the Jazz win, I think everybody's expecting a short series. It wasn't the case last year, but the team that claims Game 1 goes on to win 78.2 percent of NBA playoff series.
* * *
For those who enjoyed the life on the beat series back in late-February, I can tell you that trying to make travel plans on 48 hours notice for the playoffs is not a lot of fun.
Delta wanted $1,080 for a round-trip, nonstop ticket to Houston. I think the editors at the Tribune are still laughing at that one. Southwest wanted $750 and that was with a stop in Albuquerque or Phoenix or Las Vegas or El Paso or possibly all four.
Never having used Expedia before, I'm going to give it a plug in the blog. We had to basically execute our own individual airline merger, but I got a ticket for $550 round-trip, flying to Denver on Delta and then flying United to Houston.
The trip only took a couple of hours more than the nonstop. It's been a tough two days - - sleeping three hours Wednesday to catch a flight home from San Antonio in time for Jazz practice - - so a relatively painless trip to Houston was greatly appreciated.
* * *
The NBA announced its 2008 draft order and the Jazz will be picking 23rd, which is two spots better than last year even though they improved from 51-31 to 54-28. The Jazz also will have two second-round picks at No. 46 (from Philadelphia) and No. 53.
If this season was any indication, I would suggest you buy Utah Flash season tickets if you want to see any of these draft picks play next winter.
--Ross Siler
Nice to see some things never change in Harris County. The Jazz are making the equivalent of their third stop on the Texas triangle in the last two weeks, having played in Dallas and San Antonio to close the regular season. That's a lot of Whataburger.
I can report that the team seemed loose at practice. Deron Williams pulled a behind-the-scenes prank on an unnamed, 6-foot-11, Stanford-educated teammate. That teammate in turn vowed revenge in the coming weeks. We'll keep you posted.
Most of the time, Game 1 is a chance for both teams to size up each other for what promises to be a long series. This time, the Rockets have no choice but to come out and try to make a statement in the opener.
They can't afford to drop Game 1 and cough up home-court advantage off the bat. Not with three games to play in Utah. The chatter from the Rockets is they believe their best - - and perhaps only - - chance of winning is if the series goes seven games.
(The Rockets also took note of the Jazz's effort Wednesday in San Antonio and questioned whether they were trying to back into a rematch. They appreciated Jerry Sloan's comments about his team being the underdog as well.)
If Houston has to win Game 1, then the pressure's on Tracy McGrady to deliver the kind of performance he did back on Nov. 1, scoring 47 points and single-handedly ruining the Jazz's home opener after that big balloon drop.
He can't settle for jumpshots and he can't disappear down the stretch like in Game 7. There was a story in the Chronicle on Wednesday revisiting McGrady's famous comment about last year's series being "on me" and the change in his tune this playoffs.
McGrady said he was just trying to take the pressure off his teammates and that it was "on him" because he handled the ball 90 percent of the time in Jeff Van Gundy's offense.
"That's why I said it was on me, because I had to do so much," McGrady said. "This season, it's a lot deeper team. And we got a different style of play. There is a lot more motion on the offensive end. I'm not going to put that phrase on me this year."
If you remember last playoffs, the Rockets were so thin, they only had four - - yes, four - - players score in their 81-67 Game 3 loss to the Jazz. Their bench was outscored 33-0 in the game and starter Chuck Hayes finished scoreless.
That won't be the case this time. The Rockets are a much deeper team. I watched last Friday's victory over Phoenix and Houston won that game not because of McGrady but because of guys like Carl Landry, Bobby Jackson and Aaron Brooks.
We'll see how it goes Saturday night. If the Jazz win, I think everybody's expecting a short series. It wasn't the case last year, but the team that claims Game 1 goes on to win 78.2 percent of NBA playoff series.
* * *
For those who enjoyed the life on the beat series back in late-February, I can tell you that trying to make travel plans on 48 hours notice for the playoffs is not a lot of fun.
Delta wanted $1,080 for a round-trip, nonstop ticket to Houston. I think the editors at the Tribune are still laughing at that one. Southwest wanted $750 and that was with a stop in Albuquerque or Phoenix or Las Vegas or El Paso or possibly all four.
Never having used Expedia before, I'm going to give it a plug in the blog. We had to basically execute our own individual airline merger, but I got a ticket for $550 round-trip, flying to Denver on Delta and then flying United to Houston.
The trip only took a couple of hours more than the nonstop. It's been a tough two days - - sleeping three hours Wednesday to catch a flight home from San Antonio in time for Jazz practice - - so a relatively painless trip to Houston was greatly appreciated.
* * *
The NBA announced its 2008 draft order and the Jazz will be picking 23rd, which is two spots better than last year even though they improved from 51-31 to 54-28. The Jazz also will have two second-round picks at No. 46 (from Philadelphia) and No. 53.
If this season was any indication, I would suggest you buy Utah Flash season tickets if you want to see any of these draft picks play next winter.
--Ross Siler
11:14 PM
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3 Comments:
you should have said something disparaging about the Rockets, I think your readership went up 10-fold after the last blog. Although the average IQ probably dropped by a similar ratio.
I think everyone who posted to the last blog knows to which demographic we could attribute the IQ drop (i.e. not Jazz fans).
Who looks more like they belong in Hans Gruber's crew from the first Die Hard movie? Luis Scola or Sasha Vujajic.
It's only the 2nd quarter but it looks like the Spurs just coughed up home court.
Sasha is too pretty, gotta be Scola. Spoke too soon about Spurs, I was hoping for triple OT
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