Utah Jazz: Stronger Brewer vows to improve defense

BOISE — The first thing Ronnie Brewer is out to protect is the role he earned last season, which featured not only a new-found spot in the Jazz's starting lineup but also 27.5 minutes per game.

That represents well more than twice the playing time he had as a rookie during the 2006-07 NBA season.

But personal p.t. is hardly all that Brewer plans to be guarding in his third year as a pro.

Rather, the '06 draft lottery pick from the University of Arkansas is jacked about being even more defensive than he was a season ago.

"It definitely starts with me," Brewer said of what he and many in the Jazz organization hope is an even better team-defense effort than the one that permitted opponents fewer than 100 points per game last season.

Individually, Brewer wants to do a better job funneling his man into the Jazz's interior help defense.

Collectively, he hopes everyone comes to trust each other much more than they did in '07-08.

"We're just working on being on the same page defensively, knowing where to be on help defense, not being afraid to go help your teammates," Brewer said. "If we do that, we can go a long way this year."

They perhaps can but probably only if everyone buys in.

"To me," Brewer said, "it's something you have to want to do in your heart."

It sincerely seems to be in Brewer's, and that goes a long way toward explaining how he claimed the Jazz's vacant starting shooting guard position during this very time last year.

Jazz brass spent much of the '07 offseason fretting over who would assume departed Derek Fisher's spot at the 2, and it turned out the answer was right under their noses the whole time.

At training camp here in Boise last fall, and during the ensuing preseason, they came to realize just that.

"I think Ronnie Brewer deserves a lot of credit for coming in and taking that job — going right after it, and taking it," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said Wednesday, when the club held its second day of two-a-day camp sessions at Boise State University. "Hopefully, he'll continue to do that and make himself better."

That's the plan, suggested Brewer, who was rewarded for his play last season when the Jazz on Monday exercised their $2.7 million 2009-10, fourth-season option on his current rookie contract.

"Kevin O'Connor (the Jazz's general manager) told me last week they were going to pick it up and I was like, 'Wow, OK,"' said Brewer, who knew the Jazz actually had until the end of this month before they had to formalize the decision.

"Now," he added, "I feel like I owe it to the team to continue to work hard and continue to get better every day, because they have confidence in me."

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