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That’s right, it’s the long-awaited matchup of the teams with the two most inappropriate names in all of sport! I was too depressed by the Hawks-Celtics game to keep actual notes on this one, but here are my recap points in no particular order:

I submit Kobe Bryant (obviously) and Deron Williams as the two players in the NBA with absolutely no book on how to guard them. Put a quick guy on Kobe? He’ll gladly take him to 10 feet and put him in the torture chamber. Bigger guy? He’ll drive right past him. Go under screens and make him a jump shooter? Ha. Double him at all times? He’ll gladly find an open shooter. Get physical with him? He’ll make free throws all day long, and you definitely do not want to make him angry.

As for Deron, you tell me how you’re supposed to defend him. He’s one of the biggest point guards in the league and will gladly post his man up. Put a big guard on him? Ask Jason Kidd how that worked out. Make him a shooter? 40% from deep. Cut off his lanes? He averaged 10.5 assists per game. Stick to shooters and let him drive the lane? He can finish inside as well as any point guard not named Steve Nash or Tony Parker, and he’s an 80% free throw shooter.

(Note: There are definitely guys who have a book on how to defend them, but are plenty unguardable anyway. You can stick a quicker guy on LeBron James and he won’t post him up, but he’ll drive past him anyway. The book on Shaq before The Big Decline must have read something like this: “Has exactly two post moves: Baby hook and right-handed baby hook over the left shoulder. Cannot score over left shoulder unless in dunking range of basket. Physically incapable of making midrange shot. Cannot dribble the ball at all, not dangerous on pick-and-rolls unless able to alley-oop. And for the love of god, put him on the foul line.” Didn’t matter.)

-Jerry Sloan 1st-quarter interview: “Hey, it’s only a game.” This is an attitude you’re more or less forced to have when you’ve had 15 playoff teams run up against the all-destroying force of Michael Jordan’s Bulls and Tim Duncan’s Spurs for most of your adult life. Poor Jerry. He needs this.

-I think Jerry Buss envisions himself as the guy from the Dos Equis ads.

-Carlos Boozer, who is Satan, came out absolutely looking to destroy everyone early, with 7 points in the first 5:30 of the game and getting two quick fouls on Pau Gasol, who looked like he couldn’t guard him if Boozer played on a skateboard. Maybe he should try wearing a crucifix. (Note: I’m really not a fan of Utah’s starting PF. Just wanted to make that perfectly clear.)

-Ronnie Brewer looked like he just might be the guy to guard Kobe Bryant, or at least slow him down. He’s quick as all hell, has long arms to challenge shots, and has the energy to stay with Kobe through all of his pivoting, jabbing, pull-backs, and changes of pace. What happened? Kobe hits him with two quick fouls, on an up-fake and contact, then ripping his arm up through Brewer’s as he tried to swipe for the ball. You reach, I teach. Between that, a loose-ball foul on Kyle Korver when the Jazz were over the limit and a horrible end-of-quarter foul on C.J. Miles at half-court (the sort that could have Jerry Sloan bench you for about 750 years), Kobe got eight free points in the first half.

-Wait, ABC, what is Cashmere Mafia? Am I supposed to know who these people are?

-Between Cashmere Mafia, Desperate Housewives, the disappointingly misleading Women’s Murder Club, and Dirty Sexy Money, ABC knows how to name a show. I am disappointed they didn’t use the time off from the writer’s strike to rename Grey’s Anatomy something like Sex Doctors!

-Game log from the start of the 2nd quarter:

11:00 Sasha Vujacic makes driving layup

10:00 Sasha Vujacic makes 28-foot 3-point jumper

9:14 Sasha Vujacic makes 25-foot 3-point jumper

8:14 Sasha Vujacic misses 23-foot 3-point jumper

7:52 Sasha Vujacic turnover

7:52 Kobe Bryant enters game for Sasha Vujacic

THE PLAYOFFS ARE STILL SASHA TIME.

-I have few hopes for this series, but Kyle Korver and Sasha Vujacic trying to out-gun one another is one of them.

-Wow, this is what basketball is supposed to look like. The ball is moving, people are attacking the rim, and the defense is mostly being played in the air. Awesome.

-Andre Kirilenko on Kobe. No luck. 24 crosses over AK47 like he’s playing a video game. How do you say “broken ankles” in Russian?

-BeelzeBoozer has mysteriously gone quiet, even when Turiaf came out and Gasol came back in.

-Wow, Mehmet Okur can absolutely rebound. Wouldn’t have called that one.

-Apparently Adam Sandler is playing Sasha in an upcoming movie.

-This is not what I meant when I said I wanted to say Baron Davis in the playoffs.

-You’re not going to believe this, but the Staples Crowd believes that Kobe should be the MVP this season, proved by about 15 minutes of chanting. This is 400% less obnoxious after seeing Boston chant MVP for Garnett AND Pierce against the Hawks Sunday morning. Worse, they chanted “U-S-A!” at Zaza Pachulia. And people wonder why KG didn’t want to play there at first. Figure it out, Boston.

-Will the MVP chants stop or get more pronounced after Kobe’s officially given the award before Game 2? It seems like defiance and the assumption that Kobe would never get the award has been driving the chants as much as anything else this year. Now that it’s not Laker fans/Kobe against the world, what will happen?

-Jack Nicholson talking to other coaches while they’re in their huddles during time-outs: Classic. If Mark Cuban did this, he would never be allowed near a basketball arena again.

-Pet move watch: Deron Williams can absolutely WHIP passes with his right hand off the dribble. Never really seen anyone do it that good. Nash can pass with either hand off the dribble, but they’re usually precisely aimed bounce passes. These are absolute bullets, smoked off the dribble from beyond the three point line into the post. Really cool.

-THEY BOOED DEREK FISHER IN UTAH!? Wow. How did I miss that? “U-S-A!,” you have been unseated.

-What does Matt Harpring do? He basically runs around, misses mid-range jumpers, and does vaguely physical play-ey things. Also, he looks like a fat Ewan McGregor. That’s pretty much it.

-Okay, I’ll talk about basketball things now:

• Deron: Yikes. 1-9 on jumpers, 4-9 on shots around the basket. Nine boards, nine assists, but yikes.
• Boozer: Took five jumpers. Missed all of them. 6-9 on his shots around the basket. Seems to be able to go by Gasol at will, has trouble with Turiaf, enjoys torturing small animals taking Odom into the post.
• Okur: Flat-out beastly. Smooth 21 and 19. Then he got greedy. 0-5 from deep. I’m breaking out the Rasheed Wallace rule here, which is that nobody over 6-10 should ever take more than two threes in a game.
• Also, only 8 free throws combined for Boozer and Deron. Not good.
• ‘Dre K-Great game defensively, looking like the shot-blocking monster of old, but only three assists at the offensive end and was somehow allowed to shoot three 3s. Officially a poor man’s Josh Smith at this point. Could David Stern just let Smith play out the playoffs with another team so I could keep watching him?

And for the Lakers:

• Ronny: four blocks, but one bucket, one board, one assist in 18 minutes. Seeing as to how he defended the Power Forward Who Shall Not Be Named better than anybody else and is the third rebounder needed to keep up with Okur, Boozer, Milsap, and Kirilenko on the boards, he’ll need to play better.
• Gasol: Nice little game, with 18/10/5 on 8-14 from the field, but didn’t get the offense run through him as much as against the Nuggets and got absolutely eviscerated early by Boozer before Boozer started playing like this guy.
• Farmar: Nine minutes, 0-5, zero assists. Definitely the guy in the PG-13 movie right now.
• Fisher: Six assists and six steals. Still cannot believe he actually got booed in Utah. I watched him kill the Warriors after seeing him do nothing for them for two years, and even I still love the guy. Who doesn’t? Jesus, he’s Derek effing Fisher.
• Luke Walton: Coming back to earth after being an absolute house of fire in the Denver series. If we ever needed proof positive that Carmelo Anthony can’t guard anybody, it’s Luke Walton posting top-10 numbers over four games against the Nuggets, right?
• Sasha: 15 points in 17 minutes, 0 assists. Sasha. Time.
• Odom: An average-looking 16/9/3, but nobody was as crucial at disrupting Utah’s pick-and-roll flow as Lamar Odom’s energy and length. Will need more than one offensive rebound in the rest of the series, as he’s one of the only two bona fide rebounders in the starting lineup.

Who am I forgetting?

Oh yes, that Bryant fellow. Well, he had 21 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists WITHOUT INCLUDING A SHOT FROM THE FIELD. When you factor those in, he had a cool 38 points on 8-16 and 21-23 from the line. There are three guys in these playoffs who will not disappear under any circumstances, so don’t be surprised if New Orleans, LA, and Cleveland end up in the final four. It’s so important to have a guy who can score under any circumstances in the playoffs-look what happened when Dallas’ balanced, jump-shot happy offense went up against a true offensive superstar/God disguised as a human being in Baron Davis, and look at how Atlanta was able to take three games off Boston because they had Joe Johnson Under Any Circumstances.

Boston’s only nails-tough scorer is Paul Pierce (Did you see the Celtics’ offense after he fouled out in Game 6. Ugly.) and even he’s just a borderline All-Star at this point in his career. If Deron doesn’t step up immediately, he’s going to find out that in the playoffs, it’s a mano y mano battle as much as anything else.

The Big Warning Sign: Utah had 25 offensive rebounds. LA had 33 defensive rebounds. That’s really not good. Even if you factor in free throws, Utah shot the ball a full 14 times more than the Lakers. You cannot give a team with the kind of offensive weapons Utah has that many extra shots, especially when they get home, where they’re nearly unbeatable. But if the rebounding steps up, the defense stays this sold, and Kobe stays Kobe (those were posted in reverse order of likelihood), then the Lakers have a strong chance to win this series.

John Krolik is the author/host of Truth in a Bullet Fedora. His work can also be found on Free Darko, and the Most Valuable Network.

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