In a game that saw no lead changes, combined with and a first and third quarter blitz that put the game away early, the Utah Jazz improved to 12-14 on the season after a 110-89 victory over the now 12-18 Phoenix Suns. Utah stands in the eighth position in the Western Conference with a 1 ½ game distance between them, the Rockets and Grizzlies. The Jazz is 2 ½ games behind the Clippers and the Mavericks for fourth in the conference.
The Jazz were led in scoring by Gordon Hayward, who had 24 points, which was second in scoring for the game, behind Brandon Knight’s 26 off the bench. Hayward shot 8/16 on the game, but struggled on the 3 point line, going 2/9. However, the optimistic side would be that Hayward shot 6/7 from 2 point range. An impressive 85.7%, plus 6/6 on the free throw line.
But, it wasn’t Hayward that stole the show, nor was it Derrick Favor’s 18 point, 9 rebound performance. It was, however, two of Alec Burks’ 13 points.
One play that looks like a dunk and everybody(almost) says it is, when in reality, Burks’ hands were inches away from the emphatic throw down, actually becoming a dunk. Now you know who (almost) is! But, if you’re going to call Blake Griffin’s throw down, as well as Dwight Howard’s “Superman” throw down in All-Star dunk contests, a dunk, than I suppose Burks’ throw down was a dunk. I couldn’t “throw down” on a 10 foot hoop, so I’m not hatin’, but a dunk is a dunk when your hand touches rim, not when you go high enough to dunk, and throw it down emphatically inches away from the rim. One could argue the “throw down” as opposed to the “dunk” is even a higher degree of difficulty.
So let’s be clear, I respect the “throw down”, but maybe we can qualify it as the “thrown down dunk” and it becomes a variation dunk. Maybe something like that.
One thing I do know, is that the Jazz look to go 13-14 on the season, but it won’t come easy, whatsoever. The Jazz will be on the road to face the 26-1 Golden State Warriors.
The last time the Jazz played the Warriors was back on November 30 in SLC, UT. The Jazz had the ball with a chance to win the game, but in the end, the Warriors bested Utah, 106-103. At the time, that improved Golden State’s record to 19-0, while dropping the Jazz to 8-8.
