SAN ANTONIO — New York City drops the famous apple at midnight in Times Square to ring in the new year.

The Alamo City apparently has a different New Year’s Eve celebration method. Here at the AT&T Center, the Spurs drop in a flurry of 3-point swishes.

The Spurs were 8-for-10 from the 3-point line in the first half as a team.

San Antonio’s barrage of long bombs and a odious offensive performance by the Utah Jazz has the Spurs leading 54-39 at halftime Saturday.

Manu Ginobili has done the most damage, drilling 5 of 6 3-pointers for 19 points. At one point, the versatile sharpshooter scored eight points in a row, giving San Antonio a double-digit lead that it built on in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, the Jazz have struggled mightily on offense.

Reminiscent of their season-opening dud against the Lakers, the Jazz are shooting 35 percent.

Utah has received a solid first-half outing by center Al Jefferson, whose inflamed right ankle improved enough to allow him to play after missing Friday’s win.

Big Al has hit 7-of-12 shots for 14 points. The rest of the Jazz: 11-for-39 (28 percent).

Email: jody@desnews.com

Twitter: DJJazzyJody

EMAIL: jody@desnews.com

TWITTER: DJJazzyJody

For the Utah Jazz, the past two nights have been uglier than Chris Kaman.

Not long after they got pounded by the Los Angeles Lakers in their season opener, Coach Corbin and Co. become the victim of another blow out, this time to the Denver Nuggets.

Here’s why they’re off-key:

1. The Jazz are inexperienced

Eight of the Jazz’s 13 players are under the age of 26, and three of them (Enes Kanter, Derrick Favors, and Alec Burks) are barely old enough to serve Mormon missions.

What’s more, those who do have some NBA games under their belt are pulling a “Bueller.” Al Jefferson, for instance, is scoring a modest 11.5 points per game on 33 percent shooting. Likewise, veteran guard Earl Watson is producing just as many turnovers as assists.

2. Corbin is using a 13-man rotation

The Jazz are deep, but that’s no excuse to play all 13 players. If the entire roster is seeing 10 minutes of PT, how will anyone get into a groove? When will specific rotations get comfortable with each other? How will anyone learn their role?

This isn’t Jr. Jazz. Not everyone should be playing equal amounts of time.

3. There needs to be change at the guard position

After years of watching John Stockton and Deron Williams, it must’ve been quite difficult for Jazz fans to observe Utah’s point guards during the past couple of evenings.

While playing against the Lakers and Nuggets, London-lover Devin Harris, and his trusted sidekick Watson, failed significantly to control the tempo of the contests. Harris collected a meager 15 points and eight assists, while Watson—in 37 minutes of action—went 0-4 with zero points.

Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own sports content.

DENVER — The Pepsi Center hoops appeared to be bigger than the ones at Staples Center.

Unfortunately for the Utah Jazz, that went both ways.

A night after their offense was nowhere to be found in a lopsided loss against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Jazz hit some shots and scored just fine.

But their defense disappeared.

Rotations, team help, effort and any chance at winning all evaporated in the thin Mile High air on Wednesday night, too.

The result was another embarrassing 117-100 blowout — this one by the Denver Nuggets.

“We have to get better. … We’ve had two tough losses,” said Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin, whose team lost by an average 21 points in back-to-back nights. “We’ve got to get back together and continue to work and fight. We’ve got to learn to trust each other on the defensive end of the floor and get it figured out.”

Utah did hit 48 percent of its field goals in Denver’s building after missing a whopping 61 shots while shooting 32 percent against the Lakers in an awful offensive showing, so there’s that.

But Denver had its way with Utah’s restructured defense, which resembled a church-ball team.

The Jazz gave up 68 points in the paint, allowed Nene to score 25 points, watched Andre Miller dish out 12 assists and Al Harrington drop in 18 points off the bench, cranked their necks as speedy Ty Lawson burst to the hoop time after time, helplessly permitted the Nuggets to shoot a sizzling 53.5 percent, and let the home track team run and jump all over, around and above them.

That was one long paragraph — and an even longer night — for a deficient defense.

Giving up lobs, drives, backdoor cuts and transition baskets disgusted Corbin.

“That’s unacceptable,” he said. “That’s just effort. That’s disappointing.”

The second-year coach had a longer-than-usual postgame chat with his team, taking an extra 10 minutes or so to try to impress on them the need to play harder and together.

Sure, they’re a work in progress. They’ve got an odd mix of inexperienced talent and capable veterans. But they lack an identity and consistency, with the offense and defense trading turns at stinking it up.

“We’ve got to get things figured out quickly,” Corbin said. “The effort we got for the most part today wasn’t satisfactory, so we wanted to have a discussion about it.”

Things started somewhat promising for Utah, which is in the midst of a rough six-games-in-eight-nights stretch.

Center Al Jefferson scored 10 of his team-best 19 points in the first quarter after missing 14 of 16 shots against the Lakers. But Utah’s starting five of Devin Harris, Raja Bell, Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors and Big Al still didn’t completely click, falling behind 28-23 after the first 12 minutes.

Denver • Alec Burks used one word to capture all his feelings and emotions: crazy.

A year ago, Burks was a sleek, athletic guard for the Colorado Buffaloes. Now he’s a backup wing for the Jazz.

The No. 12 overall pick of the 2011 NBA Draft played six scoreless minutes Tuesday in Utah’s 2011-12 season opener, recording two assists and one rebound in a blowout road loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.

He then spent pregame warmups Wednesday working out on the same Pepsi Center floor that friend and ex-Denver guard Chauncey Billups once roamed.

It’s been a long, crazy trip for the 20-year-old Burks. And it’s only just begun.

“I could be in school right now — Christmas break, really,” said Burks, prior to tipoff Wednesday night against the Nuggets. “It’s a great feeling. I’m living my dream out right now.”

Burks is still devoted to the Buffaloes. So are his friends. Where most NBA players are hounded for ticket requests whenever they make their rookie debut in a once-familiar state, Burks expected few well-known faces to show up Wednesday.

Why? The Buffaloes were hosting New Orleans in nearby Boulder, Colo.

Story continues below

“I’d rather them support the Colorado team,” Burks said.

Young fouls

Just because 20-year-old power forward Derrick Favors made his second consecutive start Wednesday doesn’t mean he’s fully NBA-ready.

Favors has wowed everyone from Jazz coaches to fans with his potential and rightfully earned his spot in Utah’s first unit. But foul trouble still plagues the second-year stud.

He recorded four fouls in 19 minutes against the Lakers, and two of the penalties came in the game’s first 7 minutes.

“He’s going to learn. He’s a young guy,” coach Tyrone Corbin said. “He’s got to learn the referees. He’s got to learn when he can be aggressive. I like the fact that he [goes] after the ball. He makes some fouls — they’re young fouls.”

Next Page »

Tuesday, December 27 2011

(KUTV) And in Jazz news
today, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers are hoping to bounce back tonight after last
night’s loss when they play the Jazz tonight.

Jazz fans say they are
excited to see rookies like Enes Kanter take to the court for the first time.

As for the starting line
up tonight, Jazz head coach Tyron Corbin is not revealing who he is going to
play.

Tonight’s season opener
has a lot of anticipation going along with it due to all the recent changes on
the team.

The Jazz will play their
first home game at the Energy Solutions Arena this Friday when they take on the
Philadelphia 76er’s.

2News will talk with Tribune Sports writer
Steve Luhm around 4:30pm. Tune in to hear what he thinks about what will
happen!

(Copyright 2011 Four Points Media)