Good Excuses

Posted by Joey Parker on November 16, 2009

I’ve been as disappointed and disillusioned and disheartened as any Jazz fan, regarding our less than terrific start to this season. However, I’m going to do something now that Jerry Sloan would not approve of:  make excuses.

We are not healthy! CJ Miles and Kyle Korver both had to undergo surgery and will not be back until sometime in December (I’m assuming…)  Matt Harpring is technically still on the team, but he ain’t coming back! Add to that the fact that Memo got injured 28 seconds into the 1st game and took a few nights to come back all the way. Plus, now Ronnie Price is hurt and Deron Williams is hurt plus will miss time due to personal reasons.

The 3 biggies are Korver, Miles, and Harpring. Their absence has hurt our outside shooting a lot, but the bigger issue is depth. We went from being a somewhat deep team to being a very shallow (is that the right term?) team, seemingly overnight.

This lack of depth has shown up very prominently in most of our losses.

• Denver loss: 30-23 first quarter lead. Hung tough till end of third when we were forced to play our two rookies too much, which put game out of reach.
• Houston loss: Stayed close in the first half, then got outscored by 20 in the 2nd half.
• Dallas loss: I don’t think I even need to bring up this game again…ever.
• Sacramento loss: built big early lead, then got shellacked as soon as out bench started coming in the game.
• Knicks WIN: Yeah, we won, but it was the same story. Huge early lead, horrible 2nd half.
• Boston loss: The Celtics are just plain better than we are right now! There’s no arguments there. But, the same thing happened here too. We hung on, somewhat, in the first half, and then got destroyed in the 3rd quarter.

The Jazz have plenty of issues right now: Uncertainty with Boozer, inconsistent play from everyone, defensive issues, lack of killer instinct, etc. However, the injuries, while an “excuse”, are definitely playing a part.

P.S.- Eric Maynor, Wesley Matthews, and the rest of the Jazz proved against Philly and Cleveland that execution and hustle can trump depth issues, but obviously having depth AND execution AND hustle would be the ideal.

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4 Comments

Diana on November 16, 2009 said:

excuses excuses come on Joey you’re above that…. Just Kidding!
I agree our lack of depth has been an issue. I like though that the rookies have had a chance to play major minutes and have made the most out of it. I love them both. I hope Matthews still gets minutes when CJ and Korver are healthy. He just is a natural on the court, has so much confidence plus he can shoot the three. I hope Jerry continues to play him and that the Jazz sign him.
The last 2 games have given me hope, I wonder what it will be like when D-Will comes back. I hope they still play as team.

Joey Parker on November 16, 2009 said:

YES! They need to pretend he is out every night! For some reason, we play a lot better when we are the underdog. We don’t handle prosperity very well.

Boondock Saint (Zak) on November 16, 2009 said:

@Diana- Come on…lets be honest. Joey isn’t above excuses j/k

@Joey- Depth has been a problem but has given the rookies some valuable playing time. Furthermore, we’ve been forced inside by lack of outside shooting which wears us down even more. If we can get some shooters back and some more bodies to rotate we might just explode with a winning streak.

Joey Parker on November 16, 2009 said:

I am DEFINITELY NOT above excuses!

You’re right Zak, the silver lining is that we found out how good Wesley is and we also found out that Eric Maynor does, in fact, belong in the NBA.

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