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SALT LAKE CITY — The Jazz are once again outside looking in after losing to a very hot Nuggets team, every game counts so the Jazz need to get away from last game and bounce back.
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They aren't out of the race yet. The Lakers are just a half game up on them with six games left. The Nuggets loss hurts, but the Jazz know that they are still in it and have to keep fighting to regain their form from their five game winning streak, instead of the form in their 113-96 bad loss.
"It's one loss. It's one loss, it's a tough loss for us," said coach Tyrone Corbin. "It's a disappointing loss especially on our home floor. But we have six games loss. Take it as a loss, it's a big loss. Disappointed in that, but we have got to come back and play. New Orleans won't feel sorry for us they will come in here and try to get win also."
How the Jazz loss is probably more telling than the Jazz actually losing. They got away from "Jazz basketball" as they took a lot of jump shots that didn't go down instead of letting the game go inside out.
The game was close in the first half. The Jazz ended the half down only five, but then the Jazz tried to get their outside shot going instead of sticking to their game plan.
"Beginning of the third quarter we come out and take five jump shots to start the quarter instead of going inside and miss all of them," Corbin said.
The Jazz had been on fire from deep lately. Randy Foye had a game going 8-9 two games ago and Mo Williams at 6-7 the previous game, so this might have been a little bit of a heat check game for those shooters. But Corbin said those shots were still in the game plan.
"Even on those shots we went inside to go outside," Corbin said.
The Jazz have talked about how they are now in a playoff mode. Every game counts and they need to find a way to win each game. Well, after losing one big the Jazz will need to find a way to snap out of the funk and get back to winning games.
"It's one game, we got to stay optimistic," Hayward said. "We had a good streak, so we got to start over and get on a new one."
Fans and media often times ride the waves more than players. Sometimes it seems like players don't care as much, but it might be more that they have to look at the season as a whole. Their end game isn't to win every game, but to make the playoffs. Sometimes those go hand in hand and sometimes they don't.
We just won five games in a row. I hope you guys weren't expecting us to go 11-0. That would be great, but at the same time you're not going to win every game.
–Mo Williams
"We just won five games in a row," Williams said. "I hope you guys weren't expecting us to go 11-0. That would be great, but at the same time you're not going to win every game. You want to put your best effort out there. You're playing against a good basketball team and they just got the better of us."
The Nuggets played well and the Jazz played sloppy. The Jazz guard line went 4-21 on the night. The Nuggets got nine more rebounds and scored 18 extra points in the paint. In the first half good shots just weren't falling. In the second half the Jazz were taking bad shots looking to get back into the game.
The Jazz aren't built for "hero ball" on any given night. They have a lot of good players, but there isn't anyone that can play outside of the offense and lead a team to victory.
Against the Nuggets bad possessions lead to bad shots. Bad shots led to misses and the Nuggets running. The Nuggets running led to a big deficit. The deficit led to a lack of effort and that eventually led to some boos and an empty arena.
Fans have every right to boo. Hayward said he can understand why people were booing.
"They have seen us play well and they know how we can play so you probably expect that." Hayward
Winning five in a row isn't easy and it got the Jazz back into the playoffs. After one loss it might seem like there is no hope again. There is hope, everyone has seen what the Jazz can do, now it is up to them to get another streak going and get back in to the playoffs. And that will start with just one game: the Hornets on Friday.
