Jazzhoops   Rounding up the road trip by Johnathan Kendrick The second year the Jazz made it to the finals, they had the best record in the league and came within the best player to ever play the game of winning a championship. The next season—the infamous lock out season—MJ had retired, the Bulls were disbanded, and the Jazz were heavy favorites to win that coveted championship. For much of that season they had the best record. Towards the end they tired, slipped a little, and lost a crucial game to the Spurs. Not only did that game mean San Antonio would finish the season tied with Utah for the best record, but it also gave the Spurs the tiebreaker and the first seed. The Jazz were given the third seed as NBA rules go and proved they may have earned it as they were sent home in the second round. What happened? Many people, fans, and experts said the players were too tired—the starting lineup was playing a lot of minutes and sometimes back to back to back. The following year it happened again. An end of the season slide. Maybe they were tired again. Perhaps age was catching up. You hate to work so hard, only to lose it at the end. The chances are not likely it will happen this year. The starters have out performed the bench minute for minute in every category the first two games. Yet the starters only account for 54% of the playing time. That is still over half, but just barely. To put it in real comparison, the two opponents had their starters hold the court 72% of the time in the same games. The same opposing teams have had 7 starters play over 30 minutes, and 3 starters play over 40 minutes in the two games. For the Jazz, Malone is the only starter to play over 30 min, which he did in both games to give Utah 2 over 30 minutes and no one over 40. To be fair and perhaps push the argument, Utah had two bench players with play more then 30 min in a game. The starters are out-shooting the bench by a difference of 5%. The starters are also out-rebounding and out-passing per minute as well. One more thing that sets the Jazz apart is that they have played all 12 players in each game for at least 5 minutes. Not that the Jazz have a roster as talented as, say, some of the top teams in the league, but you usually see these teams go with an 8 or 9 man rotation. Now the talent argument here works both ways. Granted they may have better people on the floor to begin with, but they are also leaving guys with more talent on the pine. The starters have hustled and played well for the most part. Beyond that, Collins and Harpring have shown they belong in the rotation. There are still spot minutes available for certain key positional back-ups, but no glaring present need to even the minutes out for everyone. The bottom line is that the starters are playing well enough to be 2-0. The balanced attack however has left Utah 0-2. Most pre-seasons need to be taken lightly as players are playing for spots on the team and coaches are making substitutions to get guys time, not get the organization a win. Or so they say. Apparently the “everyone one plays at least 5 – no one plays more than 30” attitude displayed in pre season was the Jazz real plan after all. The Jazz are 0-2 after playing two teams that are expected to make the playoffs, on the road. It is easy to say these are games you lose anyway. Those were good teams. It’s easy to say that, or look the other way and hope to see optimism in that direction. There are 80 games left and if a solid rotation comes out of this, then 3% of the schedule is a small sacrifice to make. In the meantime, it would be nice to look a little harder like we are trying. After all, it is one thing to have the team rested and healthy for the playoff run and another to rest them too much and miss the goal of the playoffs.