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Those of you hoping for a Nuggets-esque steam roll job for the Lakers in their second round matchup with the Utah Jazz kicking off this afternoon at Staples(12:30, ABC) will likely be disappointed.  First of all, the Jazz won’t melt down like a toddler who missed nap time at the first sign of adversity.  Second, they’re just better.  In many ways, really, the Jazz are a mirror image of the Lakers.  When they’re going well, they play with excellent discipline, use hgh quality ball movement to generate good looks, and don’t give the ball away.  They can score in a variety of ways, have top shelf talent in Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, and have a productive bench. 

Bottom line, though is LA has home court advantage, the best player on the floor- that’s soon-to-be-MVP Kobe Bryant, for those who have trouble reading in between the lines, and is the better team.  Maybe not by leaps and bounds, but by enough to advance.  It won’t be easy, though.  Anything less than a six game series would be a surprise, and seven is a strong possibility.  It starts with Game 1.  Here are five things to watch for today:       

1. How does Utah defend Kobe and Pau Gasol?   Because they both pass the ball so well, Kobe and Pau Gasol have routinely torched teams that send double teams at either, and their teammates have become very comfortable finding holes in the opposing team’s defense.  (Lord knows they did it to the Nuggets, but given that Denver’s D provides more open space than Yosemite, that’s not saying much.)  On the other hand, both of those guys are more than capable of exploiting one-on-one matchups.  This, by the way, helps explain why the Lakers have been more or less unbeatable with Gasol in the lineup.  He wasn’t there for any of the three games against Utah this season, and how Jerry Sloan defends LA’s dynamic duo will have a huge effect on the final score. 
2. Deron Williams.  He torched- torched!- the Rockets in the first round: 20.8 ppg, 8.5 apg, 59% from downtown.  During the regular season you can make a very solid argument that Williams was the best PG in the league not named “Chris,” “Paul,” or both.  He’s very strong, and can work his way into the lane, work the break, and hurt a team from outside. The Lakers did a decent job of limiting his distribution during the regular season, holding him to an average of 6.5 dimes in three games, nearly four below his average.  He did, though score 23.3 points a night, which was about five above his regular output.  That’s a trade the Lakers will make.  But given the trouble they’ve had as a squad against talented PGs, if Williams tees off on them today it could set a bad tone for the rest of the series.
3. Rest:  Too much vs. too little.  The Lakers haven’t played since Monday, and expended about as little energy to win in the first round as is possible in NBA playoff basketball.  They spent most of the week scrimmaging against each other, nursing injuries, and resting.  Utah finished off a physical series against a very persistent Houston squad on Friday night.  They’ve had little time to prepare for LA, and virtually no time to rest, especially when factoring in travel from Salt Lake to LA.  So who wins that battle?  Is it better to be sharp but a little more bruised, or rested but without a honed edge?  It might hurt LA for the first six or seven minutes of the first quarter, maybe even a half, but overall, it’s hard to argue with the benefits of rest. 
4. Vlad Radmanovic.  His best game against Denver was the fourth one, and it wasn’t because of his shooting.  Vlad round himself cutting to the basket, grabbing a few boards, and standing up to a physical challenge from Denver, something that isn’t necessarily his calling card.  But overall, it wasn’t a good series for Phil Jackson’s favorite Martian.  The Lakers can win without him, but when Vlad Rad is able to knock down shots from the perimeter, it opens up huge swaths of real estate in which the other four guys can operate.  A better showing from Radmanovic would amount to a huge advantage for LA.  Luke Walton shot 71% against the Nuggets, and while there’s no reason he won’t can’t continue to play well, there’s playing well, and then there’s 71%.  The other half of LA’s small forward combo needs to pull his weight. 
5. Ronnie Brewer.  The guy who guards Kobe always gets some attention, and usually not for particularly good reasons.  Brewer is a tough, physical defender with a lot of athleticism… but nobody can guard Kobe Bryant for 48 minutes.  The job for Brewer, then, is to make things as tough as possible for as long as possible.  One way to make it happen?  Check to see how much Brewer makes Bryant work defensively.  He’s not their main threat, but Brewer can play a role in the offense, and it wouldn’t shock to see him try to run Bryant a lot and try to get him to expend energy on the “wrong” end. 

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