Jazz Bags - Shoot Around Thoughts and Notes 1-30-12

Ben Bagley - January 30th, 2012
Tags: Jazz, Pro, NBA, Basketball, Bags and Parks

Bumps and Bruises

Al Jefferson (right ankle), and Raja Bell (adductor) are both doubtful for tonight’s game against Portland. Josh Howard is still not 100%. Yet in the NBA the games still go on.

This is the reality that the Utah Jazz face tonight and will continue to face in the future as this unforgiving NBA Lockout shortened season continues. I doubt at anytime from this point forward will you see this Jazz team at 100%.

Give credit to Ty Corbin for playing so many guys earlier in the season giving them experience on the floor so when they would be needed later in the season they had the confidence to be able to play with teammates.

Ty would not reveal his starting five tonight if Al and Raja were unable to go, but I’d imagine (just my speculation) it would be Devin, Gordon, CJ, Favors, & Millsap.

Al would not rule himself out of tonight’s game and has received a shot to the inflamed ankle. Jefferson said playing Saturday was like running on glass. He had a noticeable limp as he walked out of the arena in a walking boot this morning.

Raja said the increased minutes this past week may have been the cause to his body breaking down. After the Toronto game Raja was iced from head to toe almost and said waking up the next morning his body was very sore.

Just Winging It

If the Jazz want to have success the remainder of the season it may lay on the shoulders of CJ Miles and Gordon Hayward.

Some of this has to do with Raja’s injury. Some of it has to do with teams are not focused on shutting down Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson. Either way, those two (with assists from Josh Howard and even Alec Burks) may be the difference of the Jazz playing for a playoff spot or not.

Both CJ and Gordon played extremely confident and well on Saturday against the Kings. Both had a good mix of perimeter shots mixed with some fantastic drives to the hoop. If they can continue that mix and level of play it would take a lot of weight off the shoulders of the Jazz bigs.

Confidence

It’s a weird thing confidence. Sometimes you feel as if you are on top of the world, the next day the world is on top of you.

That’s why in the first quarter Saturday, when Gordon Hayward missed a 3 point shot only to have the ball find its way back out to him in almost the same spot, many were surprised (including Coach Jeff Hornacek) Hayward without hesitations shot and made the shot.

I had a interesting conversation with Jeff about that moment and the confidence of a shooter. You can hear the conversation today on Powerhouse.

Gordon says the confidence comes from repetition. The fact that he’s shot that same shot many times in practice. That would explain the confidence, but how about the lack there of when he hesitates.

As stated before, I believe the play of the wings will have a lot to do with how this team does the rest of the season. So it will be interesting to track the confidence of Hayward going forward.

See you tonight at ESA. Tickets still available, call 325-SEAT or go to Utah jazz.com.