Carlos who? Milsap’s huge game leads Jazz past Hornets

The Utah Jazz improved their record to 21-15 on Wednesday night as they dominated the fatigued New Orleans Hornets by a 116-90 score at the EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City.  The Jazz were led again by another big game from Paul Milsap, who posted his 19th consecutive double/double since taking over the starting power forward position with Carlos Boozer on the disabled list.

Milsap was simply a beast in the paint, with 27 points and 14 rebounds to post his 19th consecutive double/double, and it’s starting to look as if he’ll be threatening the Jazz all time franchise mark for consecutive double/doubles held by the legendary John Stockton with 27 set back in 1989.  Coach Jerry Sloan praised Milsap after the game with this rhetorical conundrum:

"I don't know what we're going to do with Millsap. He keeps getting better every game”

Many Jazz fans have an answer for Sloan, as sentiment is growing that the team send the brittle Carlos Boozer packing for Miami or some other city with better nightlife and make Milsap the team’s power forward of the future.  Some are even going as far to suggest that Milsap is the second coming of another product of Louisiana Tech University who had a “decent” career for the Jazz—a physically dominating power forward named Karl Malone.  What’s frightening is that Milsap is only 22 and in his 3rd year in the league—he’s already physically more imposing than Malone was at his age, and his game is much more refined than “The Mailman’s” at the same point in his Hall of Fame career.

As has become his modus operandi, the modest Milsap praised his teammates’ effort as the Jazz jumped all over the fatigued Hornets—who’d played the L.A. Lakers the previous night—instead of focusing on his individual achievements:

"We expected them to come in and give us a good ball game -- especially coming off that good win against the Lakers.  We came out with more energy and more intensity and came out with the win.”

Mehmet Okur added 20 points for the Jazz, with Kyle Korver, Andrei Kirilenko and Matt Harpring all contributing double figure scoring efforts.  Chris Paul led the Hornets with 26 points, David West added 13 and James Posey tallied 11 off the bench.  No other Hornet scored in double figures, and the Utah bench outscored New Orleans’ reserves by a whopping 53-28 margin.

The Jazz will host Detroit on Saturday and Indiana on Monday before traveling to Oklahoma City for a game against the Thunder on Wednesday.  New Orleans will return to the Crescent City for a game against the lowly LA Clippers on Friday night before hosting the New York Knicks on Monday.  They’ll then hit the road again, heading to Dallas for a game against the Mavericks on Wednesday 1/14.