JAZZSPIN

Dillusion? Maybe.

Possibility? Absolutely.

The Utah Jazz enter their second round series with the Los Angeles Lakers as the clear underdog in the media and in Vegas.

The Jazz are coming off of a hard-fought six game battle with the Houston Rockets.  The Jazz looked far from impressive offensively in the first 5 games, but at the same time, kicked their defense up a notch.  The most worrisome aspect of that series was the game 3 home loss when they had a chance to go up 3-0, but even that was only a 2 point loss that really could have gone either way.

The Lakers swept through the heartless Denver Nuggets team that really did not even put up a fight.  The two wins in L.A. were obviously expected, in game 3 the Nuggets gave up (Carmelo’s assessment) and game 4 was a solid Laker victory.

So what can you take away from this?  Most people think it means easy Laker victory.  Others even think a sweep in on the horizon.

Key 1: The Jazz Offense

Look for the Jazz offense to play much better than they did in the Houston series.  The Rockets have arguably the best defense in the league and it was knocking the Jazz out of sync.  Laker fans might laugh at this, but they don’t have Dikembe Mutombo.  Dikembe was really giving Boozer problems going to the hoop.  The Rockets also had physical defensive presence in Scola and Landry.

When the Jazz offense gets put out of sync, it usually can’t recover to win the game.  Although this could happen once in this series, it is usually caused by extremely good and physical defensive teams such as Houston and San Antonio.  The Lakers are not on the same level as the Rockets or Spurs defensively.

Utah will have a much more fluid offense against L.A. and should be back to scoring in the 100s every game.

Key 2: Home Court

The Jazz are dominant at home (37-4 in regular season) and the Lakers were semi-dominant at the Staples Center (30-11 in regular season).  If the Jazz can continue their ESA dominance that means they would only need to win one game at the Staples Center.

Could L.A. win in Utah? Sure, but I think the Jazz will hold court and either win this series or at least force a game 7 in L.A.

At game 6 against the Rockets, I only saw one Rockets fan all night (he was endlessly booed as he walked through the corridor at halftime wearing a T-Mac jersey).  This will not be the case with the Lakers in town as many bandwagon Laker fans will find a way into the upper bowl of ESA.

Key 3: Contain the Others

I think it is entirely possible for Kobe to average 40 ppg for the series.  I also think it is entirely possible for Utah to win despite Kobe if they are able to properly contain Lamar, Gasol, Radmanovic, Farmar, etc.

Gasol will not get nearly the easy no-defense dunks and layups that he got against Denver.  The Jazz have always contained Gasol well (in his Memphis days) but it remains to be seen how they will handle him as the second option.  Putting Gasol on the line is not the best option as he shot 80.7% this year.  The Lakers as a team are much better free throw shooters (76.92% reg. season) than the Rockets (72.62% reg. season) so it would be nice to limit their chances for freebies.

(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, file)