The seemingly inevitable fate of facing the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs is now reality for the Utah Jazz. You can blame the circumstances on this road loss coming on a back to back (really the Jazz had no shot given their record in this situation against a good team) but really it came down to the two inexcusable loses at home to Golden State and Minnesota.
The Jazz stuck with the Lakers until the wheels fell off near the end of the 3rd quarter and suddenly the Jazz deficit grew to 20+. The Jazz had no answer for the Lakers offense which torched Utah inside and out.
Looking back on this game now, there is little need to dissect it deeply. The intensity will be much greater when game 1 tips off on Saturday or Sunday in L.A…. The Jazz will hopefully have both Memo Okur and C.J. Miles back in the lineup and the Lakers will surely have much more to play for than they did on Tuesday night.
On the bright side, Deron Williams was able to penetrate against the Laker defense and get to the hoop at will. The Jazz shot a ridiculous 29 free throws in the first half and another 18 in the second half. Deron had 10 of those attempts on his way to 25 pts/13 ast and one nasty throw down. Boozer played relatively well throughout on offense but couldn’t keep Bynum and Gasol out of the paint on the other end. Ronnie Brewer was all over the place early on his way to 5 steals.
Andrei Kirilenko had a decent game if you look at the box score: 20 pts 4 steals. But to watch his play at the end of the 3rd quarter and into the 4th was maddening at times. Andrei committed 6 turnovers in the game and a few horrible fouls.
The Jazz trailed by just one point after a Deron Williams layup with 2:58 to go in the 3rd, 75-74. The Lakers went on to score 16 points in the remaining 2:58 including one point on a completely unnecessary AK foul on Kobe Bryant with .8 seconds left. Kobe would have taken a rushed off-balanced shot (not saying he couldn’t have made it but the probability was low) but instead was bailed out by AK’s reach. Sure Kobe missed one of the free throws but it is mental errors like this that are completely inexcusable at the professional level. Apparently the Jazz did not learn from their similar mistakes such as those in the Miami loss. Despite the losing and poor play of late, I still stand by the Jazz chances of making a competitive playoff series against the Lakers, but mental lapses such as this make it a hard stance to defend. The Jazz lost the game and their chance to move out of the 8th spot with that 2:58 closeout of the 3rd quarter where they were outscored 16-9 and the Lakers seized all momentum.
Much more on the Jazz-Lakers first round match-up to come over the next few days.
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