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Salt Sweet Salt
With all apologies to New Orleans and the Hornets, it's the Beehive State that has stung most visiting NBA teams this year.
In what might be a surprise to some this season, but should be old hat to anyone who has followed NBA basketball since it landed in Salt Lake City, The Utah Jazz have run up an amazing 33-4 home record this season, best in the league. But winning at home is nothing new to Utah. John Stockton and Karl Malone? They always won at home. In fact, as UtahJazz.com reports, since the arrival of the Jazz to Salt Lake City in the 1979-80 season, only four seasons have seen a sub-.500 record at home. Including the league best 33-4 home record this season, the Jazz have recorded an impressive 834-333 record in the last 29 seasons in Salt Lake City.
Why so good at home? Well times and rosters have changed since Stockton and Malone were running the pick-and-roll and Jeff Hornacek was spotting up in the corner, but one thing has stayed constant: the fans. You always hear about fans taking over the game in Golden State and in Madison Square Garden (in better times), but ask people around the Jazz and they have a different take about the most passionate fans in the NBA.
“(The fans) are awfully loud. They really like their team and they are into the game,” assistant coach Phil Johnson said. “You go some places where the fans just kind of sit back and then in the fourth quarter they get into the game. But our fans are into the game, if we give them something to cheer about at all they are ready to go.”
“I know playing on different teams in years past, coming here you always knew that the crowd was going to be into it, and that the crowd was going to be a factor,” Kyle Korver, who was acquired mid-season, said. “Now that I do play from the other side, it is a factor and it helps a lot.”
Only four loses at home? Yeah I'd say it's a factor.
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