By Jeremy Brunner

This blog, like most of my blogs, is inspired by sports radio. I listen because I have to keep up to date. But most of the time I listen, I end up punching my radio repeatedly. Like today, folks were looking for somebody to blame for the Jazz game five loss. And many of the callers(and hosts) were calling out Jerry Sloan, mostly for putting Derek Fisher in for Andrei Kirilenko in the final minute. I say it was the right call, and it was about time.

Its called offense-for-defense. Many NBA coaches have used it for years. Take for example when you have a player(AK) who is a stud on defense, but is still striving to reach double figures...for the series. Then you have another guy(Fish) who is your best offensive player(besides Boozer) in the game, yet couldn't stop T-Mac with a baseball bat. It only makes sense to put one guy in for the other situationally.

I never thought I'd see the day when Jerry Sloan would do this. Remember back to the NBA Finals. The Chicago Bulls would offense-for-defense Steve Kerr and Ron Harper, and it killed the Jazz. If you remember game six in the 1998 Finals. It was the 6-foot-6 Harper disrupting John Stockton's potential game winner, if it had been the miniscule Kerr, Stockton probably would have made the shot and we would have seen a game seven. It was always a coaching clinic to watch the Phil Jackson/Michael Jordan coaching team at the end of games. And for years we have seen teams offense-for-defense against the Jazz. But Jerry Sloan never did it. Maybe it was personnel. Maybe it was stubbornness. For whatever reason, Jerry wasn't going to micromanage like that.

Now he has decided to do it. And even though it didn't work in this particular situation, I think its a step in the right direction. Now if we can just talk Jerry into fouling teams that are down three in the final minute.

Agree/Disagree? Post below.