With Utah's loss to the Timberwolves, and Denver win over Sacramento. Utah have been eliminated from the playoff race and the NBA's playoff teams have been found. Utah were so close to making everyone feel stupid when they looked back at their preseason predictions. On the bright side, we get the 14th pick in the draft and New York's which should be 16 . It doesn't make up for losing the 20 season playoff streak though, falling just one postseason short of Portland's streak which is now over. But well done to the Jazz, they surpised everyone and this was a great season considering how bad they were meant to be at the start of the season.
So...close. Almost made it damn...bet the people who predicted 8 wins feel like kicking themselves right now.
In no way should Jazz fans be feeling dow right now. I mean, this year showed a lot of things such as: AK is an all-star. You can miss the playoffs by 1 game by playing without your best scorer for almost the entire season and without a true superstar. Jerry Sloan is one hell of a freakin' coach, even with the distractions of his wife in his mind. And finally, Utah still has winning spirit, even without Malone and Stockton which should draw some FA's especially with all the money Utah has.
I definitely respect the Jazz. I was one who predicted 15 wins for the Jazz, so I was shocked at how good they were, first without stock and malone, then without harpring and clark. They used a bunch of bit players to roll with the big dogs. Very impressive.
