Basketball Daily

The Utah Jazz who have been having trouble picking up wins on the road, got blown out once again against the Dallas Mavericks.  The Jazz played very sloppy on offense and on defense they were slow to react.  The Mavericks really took it to them especially in the third quarter when Dirk went off scoring 19 points by himself.  Utah and Dallas are now tied for 7th place in the West, with both of them having 4 games left on the roster.  The final score of this game was 130-101.

The leading scorers for Dallas were Dirk Nowitzki with 31 points, Jason Terry with 21 points and Jose (JJ) Barea with 18 points.  The team as a whole shot an incredible 54% from the field and an outstanding 45% from downtown.  With this win, the Mavericks clinch a Playoff spot and send the Phoenix Suns home for the summer.

The struggling Utah Jazz team on the road headed into the Denver Nuggets house and tried to snatch a win but came up short.  The Nuggets are playing some top rate ball as of late and two bench players really showed their poise and athleticism.  The first one being Chris “The Birdman” Andersen who put up career numbers by snuffing out 8 blocks.  The second one being J.R. Smith who tied his career high with 8 three pointers in a single game.  Smith had the shooters touch all night, and he also gave out 7 dishes to go along with his brilliant shooting performance.  The final score ended at 114-104.

The top three scorers for the Nuggets were J.R. Smith with 28 points, Carmelo Anthony with 23 points and Chauncey Billups with 17 points.  The Nuggets team defense has really improved and they showed it by holding the Jazz to an astounding low of only 36% field goal shooting.  Denver is currently in second place and they want to hold that position so they can have home court advantage most of the way through the Playoffs.

In a game where the Houston Rockets competed against the Utah Jazz, Charles Barkley’s pre-game analysis on TNT rang true when he stated that the Jazz would defeat the visiting Rockets by double digits.  Kenny “The Jet” Smith disagreed adamantly with him saying that Houston wouldn’t lose anymore games by 10 or more.  So the Round Mound of Rebound gets props as the Utah Jazz team played extremely well defeating the Rockets by 13 points with the final score ending at 99-86.

The top scorers for the Jazz were Deron Williams with 19 points and Ronnie Brewer with 17 points.  The high man off the bench was Paul Millsap with 15 points on 6 for 12 field goal shooting.  Utah really handled the ball well committing only 8 turnovers the entire game.  There season long record is now 44 wins and 26 losses.