| 05 May 2010
It's been a pretty tough week for me outside of NBA/blogging, suffice to say that 'life' has conspired against me posting on the Western Conference semi-finals match-up between LA and Utah.
But here I am, and here we are: LA hold serve for the first two games and find themselves up 2-0.
Now... to ESA.
LA have a clear advantage tho': and it's a big one. Quite literally.
Utah lack the ability or rather 'length' to match up with LA's dominant front court.
Boozer's a big guy, and a pretty damn good player when he sets his mind to it... but he looks almost diminutive next to Andrew Bynum or Pau Gasol. The advantage was clear in game 1, and if possible even clearer in game 2 - where LA finished with 18 more boards in the rebound battle, 13 blocked shots and 64 points in the paint - and at every turn, Utah have struggled when LA take the ball inside. Game 3 should be interesting, as Boozey and Pau had words and had to be separated with a pair of matching Ts. Looking forward to Gasol taking it to him some more...Okur plays an important part in the Jazz gameplan, both offensively and defensively. On defense, obviously he presents a legitimite big-body against the towering height of the Lakers... but on offense it's a different story.
Okur's range means that at least one of LA's talls has to be out there covering him, and that would open up looks for the slashing brigade that the Jazz boast. At the moment, even if Deron Williams & co. get past LA's back court, there's usually a huge presence to contend with as well.
Kirilenko will be back, but what's the over/under on him ever being AK-47 in this series? At least... the version that was playing out of Salt Lake City early this year?
Smart money would be on "under".
And then... even at full strength, Utah don't have someone to contend with Kobe B. Bryant. With their current roster, they don't have any body to match up with Kobe, Pau, Bynum, Odom... with Ron Artest, his own shot is keeping him down. Fish? Well... this round will seem a bit easier than Westbrook, even tho' he has Deron Williams. The bigs of LA's frontcourt allow Fish to be aggressive, and should be able to clean up the frequent blow-bys that he's going to experience with D-Will (that's no slight on Fish tho').
ESA is itself a tough opponent, and as I said earlier - the Jazz will prove to be a tough opponent... but I see LA stealing one in Utah.
This is done in 5.
