Utah Tough

Copyright 2009 NBAE (Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images)

Utah head coach Jerry Sloan is a tough SOB. So are his teams. Monday night, his team wasn’t quite as hardened as in years past, but they were certainly tough enough to beat the Wolves 112-107. One can talk all about the 12-0 Utah run to start the game, or the substantial free throw disparity (11-16 for the Wolves, 27-29 for the Jazz), but if you aren’t a tough-minded team that’s willing to play some amount of defense, forget about it. Outscoring this bunch won’t usually work, at least with Minnesota’s talent level.

Once again, those local commentators and bloggers who emphasize offense over defense simply don’t get it. Jerry Sloan eats Europeans for lunch. Sloan and the Euros share some nice offensive strategies, like back cutting, pick and roll, and ball movement, but it’s the annoying, physical part of the game that would have any Spaniard or Lithuanian crying to the referee by the second half of any contest. Heck, by the end of the second quarter, the Wolves’ players were yelling at the refs, and McHale had picked up a technical.

A team playing away in Utah has to be focused, work through those irritants and simply outwork a Jerry Sloan team. To be fair, both teams played pretty bad defense last night, but Minnesota’s was worse. To their credit, Minnesota hung in, but couldn’t prevent crucial turnovers, or wrap their heads around the fact that it’s really hard to dribble in the paint against a team that’s looking to hack and strip you every chance they get.

Those folks who simply want a ‘Sota return to respectability are welcome to their opinion of course. As has been mentioned before, the club is playing a much better brand of basketball, especially on the offensive end. Randy Foye has rediscovered his game to some degree, and has shown he has another gear or level to his game when needed. If all this club wants to do is provide some face saving for the Iron Ranger, that’s their deal. Some fans will come back; they will see an entertaining brand of ball more nights than not, and the team will be in the majority of contests until the end. And, being that at least half of the league any given year is pretty mediocre, if the Wolves can beat a high percentage of those bad teams year in year out…that IS a recipe for a certain level of success. Hope will have been restored to the tundra.

But if you want to consistently beat a Jerry Sloan team, or do well in the playoffs, or even—gasp—contend for a title, it would be wise for this team to set it’s sights a bit higher, and not wait for respectability. To truly compete in this league long term, it would be wise to be Utah tough.