Jazz close out Nuggets in six

The Utah Jazz beat the Denver Nuggets 112-104 last night in Salt Lake City to win their Western Conference Quarterfinals series four games to two. Carlos Boozer posted some monster numbers with 22 points and 20 rebounds and rookie Wesley Matthews led the team with 23 points. Paul Millsap had 21 off the bench and Deron Williams had 14 points and 10 assists. Ronnie Price contributed, too, with Williams in a bit of foul trouble, notching 12 points in 19 minutes of play. Chauncey Billups of the Nuggets led all scorers with 30 points and chipped in 8 assists, Joey Graham (who?) had 21 points off the bench while Carmelo Anthony had 20 and 12 rebounds.

I liked how the Jazz started out the game and I thought they pretty much had it in the bag with a 15 point lead in the second quarter. However, the Nuggets rallied, largely behind Graham who I'd never really even heard of, and took an 8 point lead in the 3rd quarter. During this stretch I was very disappointed that Jazz coach Jerry Sloan never took a timeout. There's not another coach in the NBA who wouldn't call a timeout in that stretch. However, the Jazz were able to pull back ahead and salt the game away late.

I enjoyed seeing the Nuggets fall apart late, picking up a total of four technical fouls in the game, most of them in the fourth quarter. The Nuggets never seemed like a team that could keep their composure over the course of an entire series, and their lack of composure certainly didn't help them down the stretch. Of course don't take anything away from the Jazz as they showed a lot of composure in pulling away late. I may not like Sloan's lack of timeouts but his toughness seems to have rubbed off on the team and he's a good of an x's and o's coach as there is. The Jazz now take on the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round. "I guarantee you we'll be ready for it. We've just got to keep our focus," said Millsap after the game. Game 1 is tomorrow afternoon at 1:30 p.m. MT on ABC.

Here's the rest of the scores from the last couple of days:
Thursday:
Game 6 -- (7) San Antonio 97, (2) Dallas 87 (Spurs win series 4-2)
Game 6 -- (3) Phoenix 99, (6) Portland 90 (Suns win series 4-2)
Friday:
Game 6 -- (3) Atlanta 83, (6) Milwaukee 69 (Series tied 3-3)
Game 6 -- (1) LA Lakers 95, (8) Oklahoma City 94 (LA Lakers win series 4-2)

And here's the weekend schedule, all games are second round excepting Hawks-Bucks:
Saturday:
Game 1 -- (4) Boston Celtics at (1) Cleveland Cavaliers, 6 p.m. MT (TNT)
Sunday:
Game 7 -- (6) Milwaukee Bucks at (3) Atlanta Hawks, 11 a.m. MT (ABC)
Game 1 -- (5) Utah Jazz at (1) Los Angeles Lakers, 1:30 p.m. MT (ABC)

I'll have an official second round preview post later, but for picks for the series already scheduled I'll take Cavaliers over Celtics 4-3, Lakers over Jazz 4-2, and Suns over Spurs 4-3.