Jazz drop Game 5 to Nuggets

The Utah Jazz lost to the Denver Nuggets by a score of 116-102 tonight in the Pepsi Center. The Jazz now lead the series 3 games to 2 with Game 6 on Friday back in Salt Lake City at 8 p.m. MT on ESPN2, FSN-Utah and espn3.com. Carmelo Anthony led the Nuggets with 26 points and 11 rebounds and only had one turnover as opposed to the 9 he had in Game 4. Chauncey Billups had 18 as well. The Jazz were led by Deron Williams with 34 points and 10 assists while Carlos Boozer had 25 points and 16 rebounds. Paul Millsap had 16 points off the bench.

The Nuggets simply played better down the stretch. J.R. Smith, he of the twitter post claiming the Nuggets were too selfish in Game 4, had 17 points off the bench and was 4-5 on 3-pointers, which always seemed to come at the most inopportune time for the Jazz. When he's making threes like that, Denver is a tough team to beat. He does seem to be a streaky shooter whose shot is better at home so hopefully he'll leave those 3-pointers behind in Denver. I thought the Nuggets played better team basketball and deserved to win this game.

I thought the Jazz had a lot of good chances to take hold of this game, but didn't have as good of a team game as they had in the previous three. Don't get me wrong, some of our guys had really good games, just not everyone did -- Kyle Korver was scoreless on 0-6 shooting for one thing (I still don't mind him shooting because he is such a great shooter). I think Korver and a lot of the other guys will play better in Game 6. I think the Jazz will close this one out Friday at home with a good team performance and a raucous crowd, but the pressure is on as I think a trip back to Denver for Game 7 would spell doom for the Jazz. Who knows, I may end up going to this one in person.

Here are the rest of the NBA Playoffs scores from the past couple of days:
Tuesday:
Game 5 -- (4) Boston 96, (5) Miami 86 (Celtics win series 4-1)
Game 5 -- (1) Cleveland 96, (8) Chicago 94 (Cavaliers win series 4-1)
Game 5 -- (2) Dallas 103, (7) San Antonio 81 (Spurs lead series 3-2)
Game 5 -- (1) LA Lakers 111, (8) Oklahoma City 87 (Lakers lead series 3-2)

Wednesday:
Game 5 -- (6) Milwaukee 91, (3) Atlanta 87 (Bucks lead series 3-2)

I was particularly impressed with the Bucks' Game 5 win on the road in Atlanta behind an 18-5 run in the last five minutes. John Salmons and Brandon Jennings in particular played well for Milwaukee. And the saying they've been repeating on TNT is catchy: Fear the Deer.

Here's the NBA Playoffs schedule for the next two days:
Thursday:
Game 6 -- (2) Dallas at (7) San Antonio, 6 p.m. MT (TNT, Spurs lead series 3-2)
Game 6 -- (3) Phoenix at (6) Portland, 8:30 p.m. MT (TNT, Suns lead series 3-2)

Friday:
Game 6 -- (3) Atlanta at (6) Milwaukee, 5 p.m. MT (ESPN, espn3.com, Bucks lead series 3-2)
Game 6 -- (1) LA Lakers at (8) Oklahoma City, 7:30 p.m. MT (ESPN, espn3.com, LA Lakers lead series 3-2)
Game 6 -- (4) Denver at (5) Utah, 8 p.m. MT (ESPN2, FSN-Utah, espn3.com, Jazz lead series 3-2)