Tonight I break from normal Jazz Bags format to explain what I saw tonight. No bullet points or topics just what I saw and what I think it means.
I’ve been very hesitant to jump into the pool to buy into this team. At the beginning of the season I thought 30 wins would be a miracle (shoot I thought 25 was optimistic). Tonight that’s changed.
I don’t know how many wins this team will have, or if they’ll make the playoffs, but they are going to be alright. It’s like that moment that you see a child fall off the bike only to get up brush themselves off and get right back on. Will they fall off again? Yes, but I now know that they will get back up and brush themselves off.
Why?
This Utah Jazz team should not beat the World Champion Dallas Mavericks. That is a fact of NBA life. There is no superstar here, and there is a lack of experience compared to the Mavericks that is frightening. So the loss doesn’t bother me and I don’t put too much into it, but the players did.
“Tonight we had a chance to go from good to great.” point guard Earl Watson told me after the game, “We let one get away.”
Bottom line this team believes they are that good. There is a confidence level in that locker room that I haven’t seen. It’s not cockiness, and it’s not false confidence. This team truly believes in each other, and in Ty Corbin and his system. You can’t tell them what I just typed. In their mind, they are suppose to beat the Mavericks and Lakers of the world.
The mood in the locker room was different tonight.
Against the Lakers the team was okay with the loss (except Earl Watson). They felt they had made strides and felt comfortable with how far they had come. That worried me a bit at the time. Sure there was progress, but to be successful you can’t be happy with progress short of your goal.
Earl set the mood for the future that night. In my post game interview with him that night, he would have no part of accepting the progress and coming up short. He was angry. He told me that the team would grow from the loss, but he thought they should be the Lakers should not accept less.
Tonight everyone in that locker room felt the same way.
But not Earl!
Earl took the loss very hard. He shouted out in anger as he walked back to the locker room after the final buzzer. He sat at his locker, back to the room, with his head in his hands for a good 20 minutes while reporters waited and interviewed his teammates around him.
When he did talk, it was a message to the team, the doubters and the NBA! This team is not to be taken lightly. They will fight! They will not go down lightly! And they will not accept losing!
There are many other things I saw tonight that help push me in the pool, but the mood in the locker room and the way this team was flat out mad about the loss told me more than any X or O on the court could have.
Sure this team will not win out or may not still make the playoffs, but they are not to be underestimated, or taken lightly.
https://1320kfan.com/index.php/story/read/jazz_bags_post_game_thoughts_notes_1_19_12
