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Utah 108 (47-30) | New Orleans 94 (47–29)

And the hits just keep on coming.

I think the game thread really captured the sense of frustration for all 48 minutes, but I'm going to try and do a recap this anyway without focusing too much on the bad.

So where'd it all go wrong? Many places. For starters, the Jazz were on fire for most of the first half, and we just didn't have an answer for them. Our rotations were a little slow, but even when they weren't, the Jazz had no problem knocking down shots over us. All of that would have been fine had we been hitting anything, but instead we opted to turn the ball or take poorly selected shots. The result: a 27 point deficit at the half.

The third quarter was our only true stretch of good basketball. We outscored the Jazz 37 to 21 and cut the lead down to 11 going into the fourth. David caught fire and Paul was all too happy to feed him from anywhere on the court. Unfortunately, the Jazz weren't willing to roll over and (with the help of a few well-timed fouls for CP) managed to finsh strong and close out the game. Benches were cleared with 2:00 to play.

[New and improved!] Bullets after the jump.

We're going to stratify tonight's bullets instead of tossing them ll together like a salad. Let's get cracking.

THE GOOD

• David looked good tonight. He fought hard in the paint and had a nice stroke going from 17 feet out. He also did not get a 3 second violation or a tech for arguing with the refs (and there could have been cause for the latter)
• Chris did well, but unfortunately (or perhaps not surprisingly) so did Deron. Both saw limited minutes due to foul trouble, and their stat lines were almost identical. CP finished with 19 points, 12 assists, 3 rebounds, 1 steal, and 4 turnovers in 32 minutes, while Deron had 21 points, 11 assists, 3 rebounds, 3 steals and 0 turnovers in 33 minutes.
• Ronnie Brewer lit us up. Dude couldn't miss. It stung even more when Curry reminded me that we passed on Brewer to draft Cedric Simmons. Yeah. Let that one sink in for a minute.

THE BAD

• Both teams shot 53% from the floor. You would probably think that qualifies this bullet for the above section, but that's before you find out that our 17 turnovers resulted in the Jazz shooting 13 more shots than us. At 53%.
• Sean Marks and Julian Wright were pretty useless tonight. They each played about 20 minutes and only made 1 shot between them. They did combine for 3 blocks and 7 rebounds, but when you're that much of an offensive liability it really limits your team's game plan.
• Matt Harpring played 8 minutes but took 7 shots. That's not bad so much as it is weird, but I didn't have a weird section. Of course, he only made 2 of the 7 so...

THE UGLY

• Devin Brown. I would elaborate, but I think that name speaks for itself.
• Peja's shot has not returned from injury yet. He played with gusto and was generally helpful on D (except for that one time that Brewer made him look stupid), but going 2 for 7 from the field and missing both free throws on ugly shots wasn't particularly helpful.
• Byron! If Peja and Devin are bricking everything, why does Mo Pete only get 6 minutes of playing time? And if the Jazz are outrunning us up and down the court, why is Ryan Bowen riding the pine? Sure, he's not super fast, but he runs everywhere. He's always running. Isn't that why you like him?
• I felt a little slighted by the refs tonight. The Jazz are a very physical team and are known for being generally effective (albeit obnoxious) on D. That having been said, I was particularly pertrubed with the amount of reaches that went uncalled against the Jazz while the Hornets were getting called for ticky-tacky crap on the other end. Let's be clear here: officiating did not decide this game, but I did feel as though the refs made some pretty poor calls the whole game.
• With this win, the Jazz have swept us for the season. Bummer.
  

Composed to: Squeeze's Singles 45's and Under

The opponent's take: SLC Dunk