IT’S TIME TO SWITCH THE STARTING LINEUP

Did you see what I saw?   Did you see Brook Lopez make his first 4 shots on all dunks and layups and then go on to miss his next 7 shots from the floor?

If you didn’t see last night’s game, then you didn’t see one of Kyrylo Fesenko’s best games of the season.  His playing time came partly because Mehmet Okur picked up two fouls in the first 9 minutes of the game.  Brook Lopez had 8 points on 4-4 shooting after one quarter, but when Fesenko checked in to start the second quarter, his huge body and good defense kept Lopez out of the lane completely and forced him to miss 5-10 foot hookshots.  Lopez went 0-3 while Fesenko was guarding him.  In the 8 minutes big Fes received in the second quarter, he picked up 4 rebounds, 3 points and a block.  Fesenko finished with 6 points, 5 boards and a block and one ferocious dunk on a fast break.

Give me some more of this, please.

The young Ukrainian’s performance elicited this response from coach Jerry Sloan courtesy of Ross Siler’s story on sltrib.com:  ”We’ve got to see if we can get him (fesenko) some more playing time, because I think he needs to play more to keep his enthusiasm up, hopefully.”

I agree with Sloan.  Sloan needs to get Fes some more playing time and you have to keep Fes’ enthusiasm up to reward him for his harder work this season.  Maybe it isn’t hard work yet, but it is harder than his previous seasons. How can Sloan give Fes more time and keep his enthusiasm up?  In one move:  Start him.

Starting Fesenko would allow the Jazz to come out and get leads by defending the paint.  There is a fantastic statistical tool you can find on nba.com that allows you to see +/- stats for different lineups of different teams and see who plays well with one another.  David Locke has taken some of these numbers and broke them down to see which lineups are most effective for the Jazz and which lineups are used the most.  It’s worth a look here.

In short, the Jazz’s worst defensive lineups have Boozer and Okur playing together and their offensive production together isn’t overcoming the problems.  Our second most productive offensive unit is our starting lineup with Fesenko substituted for Mehmet Okur.  Nothing against Okur.  But you can’t count on two bigs who are short and have short arms to defend the paint together.  It’s asking too much of Okur and Boozer.  From Locke’s breakdown you can see that my proposed starting lineup is already 5th in minutes played together.

So let Fesenko start the game with Boozer and let Okur play with Millsap off the bench.  You don’t even need to change the minutes.  It’s not a demotion for Okur, it is just a matter of matchups.  It is no different from bringing Kirilenko off the bench.  If you had Maynor, AK, Miles/Korver, Okur, and Millsap off the bench, you have a pretty decent starting five, let alone a bench.  You have a point guard, slashers and shooters.  I don’t see any downside to this.

Start Fes, defend the paint and give yourself a better chance of winning, especially on the road.