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)

Highlights of the Game 1 loss to the L.A. Lakers.  Kobe Bryant had 38 points to lead the Lakers to a 1-0 series lead in this best-of-seven second round matchup.

Booz appears with Kobe in the latest edition of the “There Can Only Be One” commercials for the NBA playoffs.  To view the “making of” for this series of commercials featuring NBA stars, check it out here.

(Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images)

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)

The Jazz turned a great start into 113 points on the night (Utah had only 69 points in Game 5). T-Mac and Houston have been taken care of, Kobe and the Lake Show await.

MVP of Game 6: Deron Williams

Deron took over this game, plain and simple. He controlled the offense, set the tempo and made the big shots when they needed to be made. Deron finished with 25 points and 9 assists and squashed Houston’s second round playoff hopes with his three point shooting (six of nine).

Key Play: Mutombo Picks Up Two Early Fouls

Boozer showed aggression early and took it at Dikembe and the Rockets defense. Mt. Mutombo fouled Booz with 9:19 left in the first quarter. Then, nine seconds later, he fouled Boozer for a second time.

With Mutombo out of the game, the Jazz were able to control the tempo better and go inside with more ease and regularity.

T-Mac Scores 40

Tracy McGrady nearly shot the Rockets back from a 19 point deficit in the second quarter ending the half with 28 points. However, he seemed to tire once again and the Rockets never really established a secondary scoring threat. This was probably McGrady’s best effort of the series as he had 10 boards and 5 assists to go along with his 40 points on 13 of 26 shooting. Once again T-Mac was not great from the line, 12 of 18.

Home Court Advantage

It was LOUD! As one of the 19,911, I think I only heard 2 of the whistles all night. The fast start and increased Jazz tempo got the crowd into the game early and it was obvious that the Jazz were feeding off of the energy.

Free Throws

Utah was able to knock them down (84%). Houston struggled again missing 11 free throws. It is tough to win at ESA when you miss that many free throws.

Respect for the Rockets

They were without Yao Ming. They were without Rafer Alston for two and a half games. T-Mac was banged up (not that that is anything new). They were down 2-0 after two home games.

The Rockets fought and clawed their way throughout this series. It could have easily been four and out. But the Rockets have great defense that shut the Jazz down for the first 5 games of the series.

Alston, Battier, Scola, Mutombo and Landry really came to play. They are scrappers. Much respect.

(Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images)

They MUST WIN to restore their home court dominance.

They MUST WIN to avoid doubt.

They MUST WIN to live up to expectations.

They MUST WIN to avoid an off-season of questions.

They MUST WIN to mature as a team.

They MUST WIN to keep Tracey McGrady from the second round of the playoffs.

Get the Home Crowd into it Early

The ESA crowd was just waiting to explode during games 3 and 4 yet never really got the chance. The Rockets have been keeping the Jazz in a half-court offense with extremely limited running opportunities. If the Jazz can get up and down the floor just a little bit and make some of their key three pointers (0 for 14 in Game 4), then the crowd may be able to beat the Rockets on their own.

Aggression

Boozer, AK, D-Will, Memo - they all benefit from playing aggressive and driving toward the hoop rather than settling for outside jumpers. If Boozer can send a message early that he is being aggressive it should establish him for the entire game. When Booz gets off to a bad start, it is usually very hard for him to find his groove. Ditto for AK.

Keep Alston in Check

The Rockets play their best ball when Rafer Alston starts hitting 3’s. It opens their offense up and spreads the floor for T-Mac to drive. If T-Mac is driving with regularity, it could mean trouble for the Jazz.

Find the Offense

The Jazz have been and probably always will be a precision offensive team.  Timing is key.  When the timing is on, the Jazz usually pick apart the opponent’s defense and can score with the best of them.  When the timing is off, the passes are tipped away with regularity and blocked far more than normal.  I would say the the timing has not been there all series.  You have to give a lot of credit to the Rockets defense in disrupting the timing but you would hope that the Jazz could find their offensive grove at least once in a seven game series.

If you are not excited and extremely nervous for this one, then something must be wrong with you.  Yours truly will be at the game.  Let’s hope I return in a good mood.

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

The Jazz have used their trademark Jerry Sloan physicality to literally push the Rockets into this tough position.  This physical play has gotten into the heads of the Houston players, coaches and fans to the point where it is nearly all they are talking about.  Rick Adelman even mentioned the possibility of sending tape to the league offices for review, can you imagine Jerry Sloan ever saying, let alone doing, such a thing?

Entering the playoffs, the Jazz were the team the Rockets seemingly wanted.  A poll on ClutchFans showed the Jazz (38.1%) as the opponent that Rockets fans would pick to face out of the Wests’ top six prior to the seedings shaking out.  Revenge, hatred and perceived path of least resistance were all likely factors.

They faced Utah last year and complained about the physical play, what did they expect when hoping for this matchup this year?  The Jazz have won three straight playoff games in Houston and three straight playoff series against them as well (1997, 1998, 2007).  If the Jazz push Houston around again in Game 5, the Jazz will be leaving Houston tonight with eyes on a grander prize while the Rockets face a summer of fishing, memories of a 22 game winning streak, and time spent editing videos to send to David Stern.

(AP Photo/Steve C. Wilson)

Post game interviews with Rick Adelman, Jerry Sloan, Tracy McGrady and Deron Williams. The Jazz won Game 4 by 4 points, 86-82 to take a 3-1 series lead heading back to Houston for game 5.