Knicks 107, Jazz 99
I hate the thinking that the Jazz are some team from the sticks that can't handle the bright lights of the big city.
As someone pointed out, the Jazz have some of the most worldy players (Andrei Kirilenko, Mehmet Okur) in the NBA as well as others (Carlos Boozer, Deron Williams) who have played on the biggest stages basketball has to offer.
Yet there's no escaping the fact that the Jazz have now lost to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden for a fifth consecutive season. For whatever reason, the Jazz do struggle in New York. Since they can't make it there, you have to wonder if they can make it anywhere, or so the song goes.
The fact is that New York presents some obvious distractions, although probably not the ones that you think I'm going to mention. For one thing, there's a much larger than usual demand for tickets. Both Morris Almond and Kosta Koufos were looking for extras before the game, which I'm sure I haven't seen before.
The NBA gives every player two tickets to every game, plus the opportunity to purchase additional tickets. The Jazz had to buy something like 40 extra tickets for Sunday's game. As much as I'm sure players would like to tell everyone to just take care of themselves, life doesn't work that way. It's an unavoidable distraction in New York.
Another thing is the locker room is just crawling with people. There's extra reporters - - no surprise in the media capital - - but also representatives from the NBA Players Association, the league office and various agents. Everybody wants to say o. Everybody has a question to ask. Again, it's an unavoidable distraction.
Should the Jazz be able to handle these things? Of course. I'm not offering an excuse, just an explanation of the challenges that present themselves in New York. It's easy to fall into the trap the Jazz did Sunday of playing the Knicks at Mike D'Antoni speed instead of their own.
"We've got to continue to play Jazz basketball no matter who we play," Boozer said, "and it seems like every time we come here, we start playing a little bit different."
It seemed to me that the Jazz did themselves no favors at the end of the second quarter.
They had the chance to take a 10-point lead with two minutes to go. Jerry Sloan actually called a rare timeout mid-possession to make sure the Jazz took full advantage of the opportunity.
Instead Mehmet Okur was stripped by Chris Duhon and Jamal Crawford wound up at the foul line. Crawford scored the Knicks' last 11 points of the the half, which kept them in striking distance going into halftime. The Jazz led only 54-49 despite shooting 58.5 percent in the half.
The Jazz also couldn't make up ground fast enough in the fourth quarter. They closed within seven and had three chances to make it a five-point game, but Brevin Knight missed two open jumpers and Andrei Kirilenko missed a three-pointer.
For one quarter at least, I thought I was going to be writing about the best game of Ronnie Brewer's career. As New York hit five three-pointers the first 6 1-2 minutes, Brewer helped the Jazz not only stay in the game, but take a seven-point lead.
Brewer hit one 17-footer off a curl and knocked down back-to-back three-pointers later in the quarter. The Knicks abandoned him on defense and Brewer made them pay. He ran the floor for another two dunks and had 12 points and four steals at the end of the first.
But Brewer didn't score the rest of the game. He had a career-high seven assists and seven steals, but also the four turnovers. Talking to him afterward, Brewer was upset that he didn't stay aggressive the entire game.
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