The last time the Utah Jazz won in S.A. was Feb 28th 1999. I was living in Dayton, Ohio as a Mormon missionary writing letters to a girl who would be someone elses wife and not the mother of my now four and counting children. Everyone was wondering about Y2K and the fanatics were saying that the end of the world was coming. The Euro was established and is now dominating the Dollar. Spongebob Squarepants made his debut. The Down Jones closed at above 11,000 for the first time ( 11,014.70). Fight Club and The Matrix were released causing rebellion in the streets. Brittany Spears, Boy bands and Limp Bizkit ruled the airwaves.

Spurs Key Team Stats Jazz 101.0 Points scored 100.8 99.8 Points allowed 100.9 .461 FG% own .481 .458 FG% opposition .461 .358 3PT% own .320 .320 3PT% opposition .379 93 Offensive Rebounds 123 278 Defensive Rebounds 341 371 Total Rebounds 464 1.7 Assist/Turnover Ratio 1.6 24.2 Fouls Per Game 21.8

Tonight is the night that the streak ends the Utah Jazz will win tonight. The Utah Jazz have not won back to back games since March 28 2009, tonight the streak ends. Memo is out and did not fly with the team because of flu like symptoms. Tony Parker is questionable, Ginobili is out, and Tim Duncan is listed as day to day, but Duncan will most likely play.

The Jazz have played very well over their past three games after getting embarresed by Boston last week. Ball movement, shooting percentage and rebounding have been a big part of that.

I’m writing this thinking who on the Spurs can beat us if Parker and Ginobili are out. Well Duncan, Bonner (he has done it before), George Hill could go off, DeJuan Blair could go for 20 and 10, Richard Jefferson could go for 30 +, mind you I say could on a lot of these. I just see this team struggling to score over 80-85 points without an ovetime (last night). I’m not saying they can’t I just don’t see it tonight with two of their big three out. However we all remember what happened last year when we played them with some keys guys out.

I think the Jazz need to score 88-93 points to win tonight. Boozer 18, Deron 20, AK 12, Brewer 10, Fez 6, Millsap 8, Matthews 9, Maynor 8, Kosta 2, or some variation of that.

Having said all this the Jazz are still 5 point underdogs.

I don’t know why TNT didn’t pick up this game when Chris Paul went down last week. Watching the Hornets get killed by Phoenix does not sound like a fun opening game.

If we can get by the Spurs tonight and make a good run until the Christmas road trip I will feel much better about our playoff chances and succeeding in them than I do now.

Highlights from last nights Raptors @ Jazz Game.

I can’t think of a regular season game that meant so much to the franchise, the players and the fans. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer had huge nights and the Utah Jazz bench chipped in 27 points 12 of which cam from rookie Wes Matthews Jr.

Defensively the Jazz held the Spurs to 43.2% from the floor and had nine steals, 5 blocks on their way to scoring 113 points. The most by a Utah Jazz team against the Spurs since 1997.

The Jazz made some very important adjustments at half time to try and slow down Tony Parker. Parker had 17 points in the first half and was not be stopped on his penetration to the hoop. In the second half the Jazz ran two defenders under the screen on the pick and roll usually AK or Memo to stretch Parker out on the pic.

Boozer already has three blocks this year, you may think eh so what. In 38 games last year he had a total of seven. So there is a little sign of improvement on the Defensive end.

Deron Williams has made a conscious effort to rebound the basketball and it shows in his stats. Deron is averaging five rebounds a game through five games, last year he averaged 2.9 for the season. His assists are down a little but that may be due to the fact that he is not releasing on the opponents missed shot because he is crashing the boards. Just a thought.

Wes Matthew Jr. played a great game tonight. He set the tone right when he came in, he played physical defense and took the ball strong to the rack.

Offensively the Jazz looked incredible and for most of the game were able to run and set plays they wanted to run. A few times Doug Collins mentioned that the Jazz were the best team in the NBA at getting one pass baskets of dead balls. I agree.

This win will the give the Jazz confidence and if you add that confidence with a Sacramento win maybe, just maybe we can go into MSG and finally pull out a win against the Knicks which will count as two games because of the first round draft pick that they gave us.

The Jazz and their fans needed this win tonight.

To say that that the Spurs own the Jazz is an understatement, they have won 29 of the past 35 games including the playoffs. I think that from the top down the Spurs have one of the  best Organizations in all of Professional Sports.

After what happened in Dallas the other night I have no idea what to expect from the Jazz. I know that Deron Williams will play well, he always plays well when the game is on national television ESPN 8 :30 MTN.

The Spurs are coming of an easy win in Sacramento, and it looks like the schedule makers want the Spurs well rested, their last game was on Halloween. As always I think the match up of the night will be between two of the top point guards in the league, Deron Williams and Tony Parker. Parker’s speed and William’s size always make this an interest match up,.

The Jazz need this game very badly. If they can win tonight and on Saturday against the Kings,they will head off on their east road trip at .500. If they don’t win tonight and go to 1-4 they could easily comeback from the road trip and be 2-8, which would make our playoffs chances decrease significantly.

Is tonight a must win for the Utah Jazz, in my eyes yes.

Oh, Our hatred for Manu Flopobli has been well documented.

Jazz 94 Spurs 89 Booze and Millsap both play well.Deron drops 24-9.

Injury Report:

Memo- is listed as Day-to-Day but will most likely start.

McDyess- is listed as Day-to-Day and will probably play.