JAZZSPIN

Lakers fans are already thinking sweep.  Jazz fans have to be encouraged by clawing their way back somehow despite such horrible shooting and subpar overall play.

MVP of Game 1: Sasha Vujacic

Vujacic had 15 points on only 6 shots. He was 4 for 6 from downtown and they all seemed to come at opportune times. Had some key plays during the second quarter run by L.A..

Key to Game: Second Quarter Run by Lakers

With nearly all reserves on the floor, the Lakers broke the game open. The quarter started with the Jazz down one and within 6 minutes they had extended it to 13. One key play in the run - Korver hits a three but it was wiped away due to a Millsap offensive foul.

Kobe = Free Throw Machine

Not a spectacular game for Kobe but he went to the line and converted 21 times on 23 attempts. He got his teammates open shots at key moments and ended with 38 points. Kobe definitely benefited from a few phantom calls. After 15 in the first quarter, Kobe was fairly quiet from the field.

Memo Eats Pieces of Glass for Breakfast

The best player for the Jazz in game 1. Memo was a monster on the glass with 19 boards, including 8 on the offensive end! Only 7 for 19 from the field but Okur was very aggressive and taking it at the Lakers D.

Overall the Jazz crushed L.A. on the boards.  58 to 41 and a monsterous 25 on the offensive end.  Encouraging for the rest of the series? Perhaps.

Boozer

Boozer attempted to establish himself early and had a couple solid baskets including the first bucket of the game and a powerful left handed dunk over Gasol with foul (giving Gasol 2 early fouls). Unfortunately, that was the high point for Booz as he had seven turnovers and his head just doesn’t quite seem in the game. Completely unable to hit anything from outside in the playoffs.

AK

Andrei was active early with some solid blocks and a few inside buckets. Great block on Odom in the opening minutes on a fast break.  AK’s inside moves resulted in some ugly but effective layups.  Effective in first half, kind of disappeared in second half.

Missed Shots

The Jazz just could not buy a jumper all day. 4 for 19 from 3 point range was bad but the worst of it was their midrange game. Deron, Booz, Korver, Harpring, Brewer, Memo… every Jazz man was just abysmal shooting outside the key. By my count, the Jazz only made 8 shots outside the key (4 treys and 4 jumpers), basically 8 shots that weren’t layups!

Game Flow

Nothing too newsworthy here, the Jazz lost contact with L.A. at the very end of quarter one and were never able to catch up again. Lakers had many air balls, mostly wide left catching nothing but backboard.

Other Random Notes

How about Fisher’s flop 4 minutes into the game on D-Will, wow.

Kobe’s acrobatic layup in the first quarter was nice but it certainly wasn’t a “360″ as Hubie Brown declared.

Harpring was furious after a no-call but the replay showed him pulling Turiaf down by the jersey, pretty funny. Harpring had a horrible game.

Jerry Sloan was hilarious during the interview in between the first and second quarters, man does he HATE doing those.

CJ Miles was 2 for 3 from downtown in five minutes.  The rest of the team - 2 for 16.

Celtics fans sitting courtside???

Was Phil Jackson pissed that Brewer slid into him diving for a ball?

After 11 first half turnovers, the jazz ended with 13.

At end of first half, poor inbound by Okur (almost stolen) to Collins who fed it to D-Will with a sweet behind the back pass.  Deron rimmed out a bank-in 40 footer.

Halftime included Jon Barry’s “Fav Five Lakers” - something tells me we won’t see them doing “Fav Five Jazz” anytime soon.

What Does This Mean?

You have to like the fact that Utah was in the game with 2 minutes left despite such a poor outing.  With so many missed open jumpers, this didn’t appear to be entirely due to Lakers defense as it was in the Houston series.

I still see hope for a game 2 victory and we all know the Jazz will come to play at home.  Missed opportunity, yes, but this is going to be a long series.

(Photo by Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images)