Wednesday saw the arrival of the Utah Jazz, a 1st place team and legitimate NBA title contender. For the few of you who don’t know, the Jazz franchise originated in New Orleans (the birthplace of the eponymous African-American art form), was transplanted to Salt Lake City (one of American’s whitest cities), and plays in Energy Solutions Arena (named after a radioactive waste storage company). As Don King would say, “only in America.”

The Jazz roster features, among others, Kyrylo Fesenko, the eminently quotable Ukrainian who currently toils in the D-League, and who on Monday outplayed our own, Van-Damme-loving, Senegalese center, Mo Sene, in a battle of the goofy, likeable foreign big men. The Jazz roster also contains the only two NBA players named Ronnie–Ronnie Price and Ronnie Brewer. Both of them are very athletic.

While Kyrylo couldn’t make it, tonight’s game did feature the Ronnies, who were considerably spryer than their more highly-touted teammates, who knew how to do just enough to dispose of the Sonics. The game seemed close throughout, with the home team deflecting passes, scrambling for loose balls, fighting for offensive rebounds…and, if you looked at the scoreboard, steadily slipping further behind as the fourth quarter progressed. The Jazz were just takin’ care of business: Deron Williams skipped the crossovers and instead just used his bulk to get what he needed; Carlos Boozer stoically got the better of Chris Wilcox; Paul Millsap made everything in the paint difficult, etc.

It should be clear by now to Sonics observers that, insofar as the team has one, Earl Watson is the answer to the point guard question. Luke Ridnour has quick hands and sees the court well, but he’s simply physically overmatched by most NBA point guards (most NBA everythings) and can’t score.

He does, however, help make Sonics roster the most boy-bandish in the league.

Finally, in one of the many lulls in the action created by Jerry Sloan’s hack-happy defensive scheme, I examined, out of relative boredom, the fine print on the back of my press pass. It seems I’m entitled to entry at any regular season Sonics home game as well as to Sonics home games in the first three rounds of the NBA playoffs. But not the finals. Bummer.

Final Score: Jazz 112, Sonics 93

Special thanks to the young girl in the Rashard Lewis jersey who kept up the “DE-FENSE!” chants throughout the game. Way to bring the intensity, kid.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 4:10 am and is filed under Supersonics, Roundball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.