Playoff Final 2008

[Colette]

Iam encouraged by all of the younger fans (to me) who are coming into their primes right now in their Utah Jazz fandom. I remember how crazy I used to be back in the day, and I also remember how feverish I was for anything I could get my hands on that even mentioned "my" Jazz. So that motivates me to investigate more, write more, and ultimately produce more content. The positive emails I get tell me that people want to learn more about the Jazz from before they were big Jazz fans. There are lots of starting points, but I think now that hindsight is 20/20 we can talk about some of the more taboo subjects. This is something that I've talked about privately with some other fans my age, but I don't think a lot of younger Jazz fans have even thought about this. So that's why I'm bringing up this unsettling hypothesis up.

That's a charged statement, and I even know from personal conversations with Jazz front office people that they will deny it to the end of time. Of course, it's easy to say they were trying their best. Even Karl Malone was very public with pointing out that talk was, indeed, cheap because while his front office just made excuses, other teams were leapfrogging the Jazz. And I can understand his frustration -- you're a young guy. You're and All-Star. You want to win as much as possible, because in that era the players wanted to win. It wasn't about playing in a big market, or playing with your best friends, or making a lot of money. Back in the 80s when the salary cap was so small the "thing" about the NBA was about winning.

Scott Layden was an amazing evaluator of talent and got John at #16 in 1984, and then Karl at #13 in 1985. Very rarely do you find two Hall of Famers in the middle of the 1st round, in back-to-back drafts for your dad, the GM of the team and head coach, Frank Layden. It's not just pure luck, but it's something that changed the Jazz franchise forever. (I can imagine that if Utah never got Karl I never would have been a Jazz fan. Also, the Jazz may never have gotten good with how slowly they seemed to surround their HOF talent with capable players.)

Over the course of their careers John and Karl would play 18 seasons together, and finish with a 925-519 regular season record. They would also go 85-87 in the NBA Playoffs, with a pretty okay 16-18 in series wins/losses. Their playoff record is without a title, and that would have probably pushed them to .500 there; however, their regular season record is for a team that wins 64% of their games every year. That translates to a 52.53 win team over an 82 game schedule.

And this is the crux of the argument. It's like the Jazz leaned on their good luck in the draft and the loyalty of their star players, and just watched as lesser teams went and become contenders while they stagnated. (HOU, PHX, and SEA went to Finals before UTA) And Utah did stagnate. John and Karl had four first round exits in their first five seasons in the league. And they advanced only six individual rounds in a decade. That's really not good enough if you were gifted two HOFers in the middle of the draft. Or, more practically, that's as good as just two HOFers can take you if you aren't serious about getting good guys to balance the roster.

It's no surprise to me that the Jazz moved from "okay, they made the West Finals somehow" to "they are a contender now" when they actually traded away a highly effective but limited player away from a more talented one who fits the team better -- this was the Jeff Hornacek trade in 1994. (They did lose Jeff Malone in the move, but he was like the Big Al Jefferson of shooting guards. He could score, but he wasn't doing much else. And he wasn't scoring in the way you want either. Big Al is a finesse paint bigman. Jeff was a shooting guard with an 18 foot max range.) (That's hyperbole.)

Utah did their best with Mark Eaton inside for as long as they could, but injuries, age, and all the miles on his legs made him less useful each successive year. He was already a one way player, and in the playoffs was abused by clever opposing coaches who would match up an outside shooting big against him (see what George Karl did with Sam Perkins against the Jazz in '93).

I'm not expecting the Jazz to make a block buster move, but even small moves to improve the quality of depth of the #4 to #10 guys on the team would have made that first decade of John and Karl easier on them. I threw my hat into the ring as a Jazz fan and they went and took the Showtime Lakers to the brink in the '88 Playoffs. The team didn't even make the same round until three playoffs later, and didn't surpass it until four. In-between were two first round exits.

Sure, the reasonable thing is just to accept that the Jazz were trying their best, but their best wasn't good enough. Sir, I am not reasonable. I am a fan. And I don't think that you're trying to surround your budding All-Stars and future HOFers with the best talent possible when guys like Carey Scurry and Bart Kofoed are coming off the bench to play big playoff minutes.

Eventually the Jazz started to actually build around John and Karl (and Jeff). But it took a very long time and they were at the top of the mountain at the very ends of their careers. From 1996 to 2000 the Jazz were the team no one wanted to face. I don't see if there is a legit reason why they couldn't have been that from 1990 to 2000, though.

The Jazz were patient and conservative, and did not go for the home run. I get that. They also watched a lot of pitches and went down without swinging early and often in John and Karl's career together. That's something today's stars will not accept. And the cap and the agents promote movement.

Thankfully, Dennis Lindsey isn't waiting around to improve the team. He may not be going for the home run just yet, but his bunts and stolen bases are adding up where the earlier GM's strike outs used to be. But more on that awful mixed metaphor in the next piece.

I plan to do a couple more Data Dumps throughout the playoffs. The next area I am going to investigate is the roster construction, but if there is anything else you want me to look into, let me know in the comments, and I will see what I can do. In the meantime, enjoy the playoffs.

If the New York Rangers or the Boston bruins play either the Vancouver Canucks or the Colorado Avalanche in the Stanley cup final: I think it would be the first time that both teams have a majority of American players in the Stanley cup finals !

*Adjusted Division Point Differential is averaging the differential against each Division Opponent in all games played, giving equal weight to each matchup, and then adding that up for an Adjusted Division Point Differential. This helps resolve the imbalance of cross division games and 3 games against a weaker foe for one team but not the other.

The league will complete this process for all division matchups/opponents, and then add up the differential calculated from each match-up to determine the "adjust division point differential" to determine the seeding. This does not pertain to the final four weekend, only the playoffs in the divisional rounds.

WOW and this is still happening in 2024. I seriously get this glitch EVERY time there is a playoff. Before the first hole! It shows the screen that explains how a playoff works, goes through the intro then hangs on a fern, grass, field... Thank JEEBUS the solve for me is Quit, Save Round. Then go back to Career and Return to game... All is the same but still... EVERYTIME! :P

It's now March 2024 and this is still completely broken on PS5 (and I assume everywhere else). As soon as there's a tie the game freezes and I have to restart. Then when you try and complete, the game seems to think you're still playing the last round (18 holes).

Amongst all the other bugs that have been ignored, I sincerely hope this is the one that gets rectified. It completely ruins career mode (the only way I play) and after spending 40 + on a game to just leave this game breaking bug for over a year is completely unacceptable.

I continued to save and quit and play again. I ended up getting birdies on all the holes on the 3rd try and won the tournament. Hopefully this helps others with this glitch. They really should just fix it though.

Playoff matchups will not be determined until the final regular season games have been completed. However, the NFL does require Playoff ticket information be provided to eligible Season Ticket Members in preparation for the possibility of hosting playoff games.

You are not required to purchase Playoff tickets; however, if you do not notify us of your intent or decline your playoff option, your seat location will be made available for sale to the general public for any potential Playoff games.

If your credit card is declined, the Bengals Ticket Office will email the email address on your account to receive updated credit card information in advance of the game. If your method of payment is not updated 48 hours after your initial credit card decline, your mobile Playoff ticket(s) will not be allowed entry into Paycor Stadium and will be made available to other ticket buyers.

The basketball playoff game financial reporting form is no longer requred by UIL rule. The UIL no longer collects 16% of post district basketball game receipts. Schools are no longer required to report their basketball post district financial forms or mail any checks to the UIL office.

The Lions went 12-4 in the 1991 season, winning the NFC Central and hosting a divisional-round game on Jan. 5, 1992 against the Dallas Cowboys, who beat the Chicago Bears in a wild-card game. The Cowboys, with Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, were on the verge of greatness but not quite there. That came one year later when Dallas beat Buffalo in Super Bowl 27.

Lions offensive lineman Mike Utley sustained an injury to his sixth and seventh vertebrae, causing paralysis. He gave a thumbs up as he was carted off the field, and that has became a symbol for the Mike Utley Foundation, which aims to help find a cure for paralysis. In one play, his career was over and his life changed.

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