Carlos Boozer Makes Us Tripucka

The Spurs beat the Jazz last night for the 5,127th straight time in San Antonio last night, taking a 2-0 lead in their Best Of What’s Left To Watch series. Coverage of the game consisted of conversations about the draft (well, OK, not really, but why not?).

The Spurs won despite big nights from Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams, and the happy story, if you are a Jazz fan, is that the home team only won because they were lights-out from the three point line, and your team has been money at home in the post-season.

(If you are a Jazz fan, I’m also contractually obligated to ask you about your four wives as I drink forbidden nectar that has caffeine in it. Later on this weekend, we’re hoping to ask you about praying to convert your dead ex-players, make some Brokeback Mountain censorship jokes, and mock your freakish devotion to the underwear. Please take it personally and post hate-filled replies that assume I’m a Spurs fan, so that you and other Spurs Fans can get into a big flame war in the Comments section. We’re not asking for much, really.)

To this observer, Boozer’s points were Tripucka-esque, and since I just dropped a 25-year old NBA reference because I Am Freaking Old, we got some ‘splaining to do. Why don’t you sit a spell, and put your feet up on a wife, while I whittle up some knowledge?

Kelly Tripucka was a 6’-6” small forward in the Kiki Vandeweghe / Peja Stojakovic / Adam Morrison mold, with a 10-year career from 1981 to 1991. He was a mildly athletic scoring white guy with a good stroke, who could carry you during his hot stretches, and shoot you out of the game when he wasn’t on. He was also notable for playing little defense, whining to the refs in an era when it wasn’t expected, looking like the prehistoric Will Ferrell, and for having a last name that gives frat boys the giggles even today (Tre-PUKE-ah).

Now that the world is filled with armchair GMs and fantasy sports players who value the numbers produced by all-around players, Empty Calories guys like Tripucka aren’t highly valued. But back in the day, Stopping Tripucka, and his 20 points a night, was a major point of discussion on how to beat the Pistons.

The Pistons rival in the Tripucka Era was Don Nelson’s Milwaukee Bucks, who had the best defensive off guard in the game in Sidney Moncrief. Moncrief was, basically, 90% of the defensive player that Kobe or MJ was, but maybe a quarter of the offensive player, so everybody knew he was a defensive hammer. He’d get mongoose-quick steals on the ball, rather than from gambling. Had he been on teams where he wasn’t also the offensive go-to guy, would have probably got himself a ring or two.

You’d think that Nelson would just throw Moncrief at Tripucka and move on to other matters, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, he gave Tripucka his lead, and would watch as he’s pour in 20 to 25 points in the first three quarters. Moncrief would give him some attention, but it wasn’t constant, and the Bucks would rotate various people at him, and keep things in single coverage.

Then the fourth quarter would start, and with the Pistons fat and happy in the trap, Nelson would deploy Moncrief, and Moncrief would shut the door. No one else on the Pistons, having spent three quarters relying on Tripucka for offense, would be ready to step up. The Bucks would win, and the game coverage would be how the Bucks overcame a great game from Tripucka.

It was an incredibly simple trap, but one that the Pistons seemed to fall for consistently, especially in games that mattered.

Now, how does that relate to Jazz-Spurs? Simple. Carlos Boozer is the Jazz Tripucka.

If he scores 30, the story is that he’s having a great game against today’s big man Moncrief, aka Tim Duncan. If only the rest of the Jazz could hold up their part of the bargain, this would be a series...

But the Spurs are winning *because* Boozer is scoring this much. He doesn’t open up the floor for other players. If he’s your early option on offense, the other guys on the team aren’t getting their looks – and NBA players rarely play well on defense when they are not getting some points on the offensive end. He also isn’t going to deliver when they need it against Duncan.

And the player that they really need to score, Mehmet Okur, is getting outplayed by Francisco Oberto. (No, seriously. Francisco Oberto. And you wondered how Nazr Muhammad got paid.)

If I’m Jerry Sloan, I’m doing everything I can to get Mehmet into the series in Game 3. I’m running double and triple screens in the first quarter to get him a clean look from distance. I’m running guards at Oberto and Duncan and having them pop blood capsules for the full Nash Effect.

Because the only way – failing Deron Williams turning into 2000-era Allen Iverson, and even 2000 AI got stopped by superior big men – that the Jazz are going to win this series is if Okur is such a force that he can draw the Spurs big men away from the basket -- and give the Jazz a shot at a fourth quarter where Duncan doesn't do his Moncrief routine on Boozer.

If and when that happens, we might have a series. Williams is making people forget Chris Paul, any team can go cold from the arc, the Jazz do have a solid home court, and Jerry Sloan can walk and chew gum at the same time. I don’t think he’s got the cards to win this hand, but he shouldn’t get swept, and his teams don’t quit.

But if you see Boozer as the leading scorer on the Jazz in the third quarter in a more or less even Game Three, it’s probably safe to shut off the game and go clean your gutters.

They’ve probably got a lot of Tripucka in them.