Jimbo’s Mailbag – Jazz vs. Clippers Predictions

Melissa Majchrzak via utahjazz.com

Get ready for the postseason stylings of our resident mailbag artist. Jimbo Rudding provides our regular dose of levity here at Salt City Hoops, and he does it by answering the burning questions to which Jazz fans just must have answers. You can submit questions to Jimbo at mailbag@saltcityhoops.com or by tweeting to @JimboRudding.

Q: Can you predict some of the crazy things that are bound to happen during the Jazz/Clippers series?

@joel_hiller

Yes, I can. In fact, predicting what’s going to happen in the future is one of the two talents I was born with. The other is being able to eat an entire family-size bag of M&M’s in one sitting without spoiling my dinner.

Here’s what I expect to see in the Jazz/Clippers series:

• Chris Paul will get upset about something and complain to the refs.
• Blake Griffin will get mad about something and complain to the refs.
• DeAndre Jordan will become irate about something and complain to the refs.
• Coach Doc Rivers will get angry about something and yell at the refs, but they won’t be able to hear him because he lost his voice in 1993.
• Jamal Crawford will take a ton of crazy shots and the commentators will mention how great he is even though he shoots too much and isn’t much of a team player.
• Blake Griffin will get away with hooking Rudy Gobert and Rudy will get called for the foul.
• If the refs make some bad calls in Game 3, a certain cool fan who writes an amazing weekly mailbag will hurl a stale blueberry muffin onto the court from the upper bowl.
• DeAndre Jordan will get a dunk.
• Trey Lyles won’t play.
• Craig Bolerjack will confess that he actually tried hot yoga this week and that he managed to sweat completely through his jeans.
• Matt Harpring will fall completely in love with Chris Paul.
• Luc Mbah a Moute will add a few more consonants to his name just for fun.
• I will have a late-night anger-eating session at IHOP.

There’s, like, a 110% chance that everything in this list happens during this series.

Q: What secret weapons have the Jazz been saving for the playoffs?

@erushton99

Honestly, I think their biggest secret weapons are two pair of healthy knees. Favors and Hood’s knees look great and ready to go. Those beautiful, luscious, healthy knees. I LOVE KNEES!

Another secret weapon could be the Jazz’es’s lack of jitteriness. Seriously, I would LOVE it if the Jazz managed to quickly get over the whole playoff nervousness after the first two minutes of Game 1. I am legit nervous about the first half of Game 1. And if I’M nervous, imagine how the Jazz players who have never been to the playoffs feel.

Q: If this Jazz roster were foods, what food would each player be?

@impwalker77

This is the WORST question for me to answer right now, because I am STARVING. I’m craving a big bowl of coleslaw. I’ll try and push through the hunger and finish answering your question.

Here we go:

• Hayward – funnel cake
• Gobert – creme brulee
• Lyles – half-eaten hot dog bun
• Ingles – roast beef
• Neto – exactly one pinto bean
• Exum – a clump of brown sugar
• Hood – mike and ikes
• Favors – block of cheese
• Burks – taquito
• Mack – a half-eaten hot dog
• Withey – gyro
• Diaw – baked potato
• Bolomboy – caesar salad
• Johnson – ribs
• Hill – chips and salsa

Q: What if Fisher hadn’t lied? Where would we be?

@SLCJuanB

I’ve contemplated that many times throughout my life, Juan, and I keep coming back to the same answer: we’d all be Derek Fisher fans. So, really, Derek Fisher did us all a favor by lying to get out of his contracts.

The reality is, we can’t control what others are going to do; we can only control what WE do. That’s why it’s so important to correct others when we notice they’ve done wrong. Some call it “judging” or “nagging,” but I call it “rough reminding” and they need those rough reminders so that they eventually learn that they are wrong and everyone knows it. That’s the beauty of life; helping others see their wrongs and reminding them of the impact all their wrongs had on us.

(Feel free to embroider any or all of the paragraph onto a pillow.)

Q: Can the Jazz please just get lucky for once?

@Steeleman77

RIGHT!?!?

Here’s a list of the bad luck the Jazz have had:

• Knee (Favors, Exum, Hood, Raul Lopez…)
• Ankle (Neto, D-Will)
• Achilles (Memo)
• Lies (Fisher)
• Hearing pops (Boozer)
• Pushes off (Jordan)
• Not signed (Matthews)
• Isn’t good (Lyles, Kirk Snyder, Mo Almond, Eric Maynor, Koufos, Trey Burke)
• Draft misses (Leonard, Tony Parker, Chris Paul, Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, George Hill, Klay Thompson)
• Ty Corbin
• Jim Les

I get it. Every team has injuries and no one drafts perfectly, but it’s just hard to escape your past sometimes. Like, in my neighborhood, I’ll always be remembered as “the kid who threw tons of green food coloring into the neighbor’s above-ground pool. I just need to eventually get to a point in my life where I’m fine with that, you know?

Hopefully our recent good luck (drafting Rudy Gobert, getting Joe Johnson, developing Ingles) will take us past this first round. If not, you can find me at IHOP.

Thanks for submitting questions, you guys. Remember to tell everyone in your HOA about Jimbo’s Mailbag. Tell them right before complaining about the “crazy party house” in the neighborhood. When people ask which house it is, just turn and point at yours. Make it weird.