Preview: Jazz vs. Cavs 11-16-07
The Jazz pulled out a close one against Toronto the other night and they face the Cavaliers tonight.
The last time these two teams met was on November with a sick finish with Lebron tying it with a three and Deron getting the layup for the win. This game should definitely be a close on. The Jazz played with a fairly small lineup which matched up pretty well with Cleveland.
I kind of see Cleveland wanting to use this as a statement game. Last season they were the Eastern Conference Champs. This year hasn't been going well at all, starting with the offseason distractions with Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic. They're coming into this with a record of 4-5 and have a few key injuries, especially Larry Hughes. In spite of this, Lebron James will come out guns blazing and make this competitive.
As for our Jazz, everything seems to be going well. They've won five in a row. Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams have been awesome since the season began. Andrei Kirilenko has returned to form.
This really is the Jazz's game to lose. As long as they play adequate defense and don't turn the ball over 32 times like they did against the Raptors, they can get the win.
Here's five things to think about in tonight's game.
- Lebron James. He's going to get his. There's no doubt about it. But don't let him score 30+ in the game. Try your best and hope that you can get some help defense from Kirilenko if you can. But outright doublet eaming him is just stupid. The only thing that does is opens other Cavs, which leads to...
- Defend the three point. The Jazz's biggest problem is still how awful they defend the perimeter. In the last game, they gave up 8 three pointers to the Cavs. There is no reason they should be letting Daniel Gibson and Damon Jones get good looks.
- Boozer vs. the Cleveland fans. I'm sure there are still some hard feelings between the two. Last year Boozer played his first game back in Cleveland, showing that he could care less and put up something like 14 points, 19 rebounds. When they played at the Energy Solutions Arena, Boozer was getting what he wanted and I think he will in this game to.
- Andrei's stat filling. AK-47 has been flirting with either a quadruple double or the fabled 5x5 the last week. I really think his beef with Sloan has been settled. Kirilenko definitely has his confidence back and Sloan is a lot more trusting of him.
- Harpring's out. What he brings to the Jazz isn't always seen in the box score, but you can always count on him getting a few points and providing some physical defense.
