Boondock Saint on March 23, 2009 said:

I really really REALLY don’t want to see the Spurs or the Lakers in the first round. You are correct when you call Artest a freak on the court, off the court, and in a court but I’m not as worried about them because our bench should out play theirs and Aaron Brooks is running the point. With that said, they LOVE to drive and kick and the Jazz have never been great at defending the 3. So….who knows but I am sure I’m going to get a great look at it tomorrow when I go to the game. I like the idea of New Orleans, who I would love to get the 8th spot (unlikely I know) because I think they create matchup problems for the Lakers and could give them a run for their money. Denver and Dallas…meh is all I have to say. Portland, so much talent, really young, playing crazy good basketball at home….I’d like to see them matchup against the Lakers or the Spurs and maybe upset one of them because I like our chances against them.

All that being said. Bring on anyone and I still think the Jazz, when they are on their game, can give anyone a run for their money.

JazzManSLC on March 23, 2009 said:

When it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is how the Jazz are playing when they hit the post season. I don’t think it matters who they play in the first round – they are capable of beating anyone in a series Thing is, if they have a good rest of March/April, and reel off a lot of wins and go into the playoffs with momentum, they’ll be one of the top four seeds, and get to play someone like New Orleans, Denver or Portland with home court. That’ll just give them a chance to get even more momentum going into the second round.

GO Jazz!

Annie Whittaker on March 23, 2009 said:

Since you brought up the Utes–I haven’t been able to watch them this year so I had a fairly unbiased view of the game. Like the Jazz in most of their recent road games, the Utes had their chances, and they didn’t take advantage of them. While all of the matchups you talked about are indeed scary, the scarier prospect to me right now is the ability of the Jazz players to use their brains in the rest of their games. Kind of a negative take, but it’s what I’m feeling with the Jazz right now.

UTauMan on March 23, 2009 said:

You are a wise man. The Utes broke my heart last Friday. I had hoped for at least another game or two. Hopefully Boylen gets the program back to what we Utah fans were accustomed to in the Majerus years.

With the Utes’ season over, now the Jazz have my undivided attention. I truly hope they can move up the ladder and pull a higher seed than 7 or 8. It’s doable, but I believe they’ve got to win some road games against solid competition. Beating Phoenix is doable, and if they could really step up against Denver and Portland, a division championship would be assured. I’m probably being too much of an optimist though. I too would hope for a Hornets draw in the 1st Round. Houston in the semis wouldn’t be bad either. I can only assume the Lakers will make it to the conference finals, but we can always hope.

What a crazy season when this late only a couple of games separate the 2 seed from the 8 seed, and nearly any matchup is still conceivable. Nice post.

Levi on March 24, 2009 said:

I agree with Annie, I think the Jazz can beat anybody when they are playing well. I just don’t always see consistancy from them. Some games I’m amazed at the superb basketball they play, and others I find myself confused as I wonder what they are thinking while they make one bad decision after another.

To me the matchups are more about entertainment (of course that’s only because I really do believe the Jazz can beat anybody. Obviously certain matchups will always be more or less favorable.) I’d like to see the Jazz play the Hornets, Nuggets, or Rockets in the first round. Those matchups would all be fun for me to watch. If the Jazz don’t play the Hornets, then I agree that the hornets would best match up with LA, giving them a tough series, and providing entertaining games.

Eventually the Jazz will most likely play the Lakers, and I just hope the Jazz are playing smart basketball when they do. The current Utah Jazz team can beat the Lakers, but they have to be playing thier best ball to pull off the upset.

Jake on March 24, 2009 said:

Fingers crossed that the other teams that play the spurs and the lakers own them.

Jake on March 24, 2009 said:

are you saying the jazz will be in the 8th seed?

J R Stewart on March 24, 2009 said:

They will all be tough.
The Hated Lakers or the Spurs are the toughest match-up.
Let’s hope they can somehow scrape enough wins together to get home court.
The Jazz need to run the table to get home court. Not likely!!! I hope I see it.

Go Jazz!

Jazzaholic

CLUTCH CITY on March 24, 2009 said:

I will love to see the jazz vs. the rockets in the first round. Its not like the last couple of years we are actully healthy i love this time of year playoffs baby

Steve on March 25, 2009 said:

I completely disagree with your assessment. While homecourt advantage would certainly help the Jazz, I think worrying too much about playoff placement is pointless right now. Unless the Jazz can get up to 2nd place, or at least a legitimate 4th (not 4th by virtue of leading their division as that doesn’t yield homecourt advantage), it’s really not going to matter.

I think a matchup with the Spurs would be great for the Jazz. The Spurs have declined significantly in the past two years, while the Jazz have only gotten better. This game would come down to a matchup of Deron Williams vs Tony Parker. I’ll take that matchup.

I think the Rockets are the 2nd most dangerous team in the west. Look at their winning percentage against teams above 500. 24-12 They’ve won 67% of their games against winning teams! The Jazz are a winning team. That is 2nd in the west only to the Lakers at 27-11 71%. San Antonio has only an 18-19 49% record against winning teams. What’s more, the Rockets hold a huge grudge against the Jazz for knocking them out of the playoffs 2 years in a row. They would play harder and tougher against the Jazz than any other team. The Rockets are the 1 team in the west that we should hope to avoid this year.

Which brings us to the Lakers. Everyone wants to avoid a matchup with the Lakers. Which means you hope you don’t get 8th seed. 1st round matchup, 1st round death. Of course, you want to avoid the 4 and 5 seeds too. They’ll be matched up against the Lakers in the 2nd round. Ideally you hope for 6th, 7th, 2nd, or 3rd, so you can put off that dreaded matchup with the Lakers until the final round of the western playoffs.

That is if you’re certain you’re going to lose. If you know you aren’t going to win a championship then you just hope to avoid the Lakers until the last possible moment so you can get as far in the playoffs as possible. But let’s face it. No one else is going to beat the Lakers for you. If the goal is to win a championship, you’re going to have to beat the Lakers. Someone else might beat San Antonio or Houston for you, but the Lakers are right in the middle of the road to the trophy.

So if the Jazz land the dreaded 8th seed and have to play the Lakers in the 1st round, so what? Let’s get it over with. At least then both teams will start on even footing. A later matchup with Lakers would probably result in them sweeping their previous opponent, while the Jazz struggle through a tough series and go in tired while the Lakers are rested. At least in a 1st round matchup the teams start on equal footing.

So aside from hoping we don’t meet the Rockets in the playoffs, I don’t really think it matters who we play. I’m confident in the Jazz’s ability to beat any other team in the west except for maybe the Lakers and Rockets, and they are going to have to play the Lakers eventually.

I personally hope for either 2nd seed, or 8th, but really the matchups matter very little. Let’s get it on.

James Seaman on March 25, 2009 said:

Steve,
Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I agree with you that if the Jazz want to go all the way, they’re eventually going to have to beat the Lakers, so it probably doesn’t matter when we face them. But in terms of the ability to go deep into the playoffs, I have to respectfully disagree with you because I definitely think matchups matter. Consider two years ago when the Jazz ended up with Golden State in the second round. That probably doesn’t happen if the Jazz end up with Dallas. And for the Mavs, who had one of the best regular seasons in recent memory back in 2007, they wound up with the worst possible matchup for themselves when they got the Warriors (against whom they were 0-3 during the regular season). The Jazz benefitted from a similar situation in 1994 when first seeded Seattle lost to Denver and the Jazz took out the Nuggets to get to the conference finals. In terms of the matchup with San Antonio, I have to say again that I don’t think it’s a good one for us. While I love Deron Williams, he does not stop penetrating point guards well, and Tony Parker usually has a field day getting into the paint against D-Will. Manu does the same. I think those two–far more than Tim Duncan–truly kill the Jazz when we face the hated Spurs. While Houston still worries me, they don’t have the winning pedigree that San Antonio does. Artest isn’t a proven winner in the playoffs, and of course Yao isn’t either; they don’t have a veteran point guard, either. I’ll take my chances with the Rockets (again) rather than San Antonio.