Jazz fans can put plans on hold
Brad Rock
And for heaven sake, don't book the bus tour of Beverly Hills movie mansions yet.
That anticipated playoff match-up between the Jazz and Lakers is still in doubt.
Tuesday night at the Toyota Center, the Rockets embarrassed the Jazz, 95-69, to pull to a 3-2 deficit in their best-of-seven series. Which means the action swings back to EnergySolutions Arena, where the Jazz are almost invincible. Except, of course, if they're playing the Rockets, who don't seem to worry at all about that home court hoo-hah. They won one and came close to winning a second, last week in Salt Lake. All totaled, the Jazz have lost five games all year at ES Arena, two of them to Houston.
"It's not that we're not confident, but it shouldn't be only talk. We really need to be active and bring the win off," said forward Andrei Kirilenko. "Nobody going to give it to us."
So now the Jazz have a serious problem. They've let the Rockets think they're supposed to win and isn't that just begging for trouble? That's what happened back in 1994 and 1995 and you know what happened then — Houston rolled past Utah on the way to back-to-back championships.
Fact is, the Jazz shouldn't have let it get to this point. They led two games to none after shocking Houston on its home court. The series could have been over, and most experts predicted it was. Now it's getting dicey. The Jazz are playing poorly — try 36 percent shooting — and their All-Star forward, Carlos Boozer, is still AWOL. In five games he has scored 20 points only once. In the other games he scored 13, 15, 14 and 19.
At first his sub-par play was an aberration, then a concern. Now it's a full-on slump.
Asked if there was frustration over the way the Rockets have stunted his chances to score, Boozer retorted, "A little bit, but that's part of it; you just go play the game."
Although the Jazz-Houston series certainly hasn't been the sexiest of the playoffs, there have been plenty of story lines — and they're growing. Underscoring it all has been the mysterious decline of Boozer's game. Houston's Luis Scola, Dikembe Mutombo and Carl Landry — along with a cast of thousands — have combined to keep him from doing much in the paint. He has missed finger rolls and and bankers, jumpers and drives at an unusual rate.
Meanwhile, Houston star Tracy McGrady — who has had issues of his own — let slip that his sore knee has been more than that; perhaps even surgery-worthy after the season. He also told Houston Chronicle on Monday the solution to Utah's physical play might be that the Rockets will "probably have to send a message."
Recent comments
How many times dating back to the dark ages have the Jazz had a stinkey...
Right on Sick | May 1, 2008 at 4:08 p.m.
Man, All you bandwagon Jazz fans....get lost, we don't need you...
Sick to my Stomach | May 1, 2008 at 10:53 a.m.
Maybe the Jazz don't want to face the Laker's next round...
Anoymous | April 30, 2008 at 4:50 p.m.
