Percussion and Concussion: Jazz Hit Notes… and Lakers
By Ted M. Green | NBA, L.A. Confidential, Los Angeles Lakers
The Jazz hit more low notes than high notes in Game 1, but they did hit every Laker in sight, even Phil Jackson when Ronnie Brewer fell in Phil’s lap.
Percussion? Game 1 looked more like a concussion.
-The Lakers are better than the Jazz and could win the series in five games even if they continue to get murdered on the boards. Wouldn’t be a bad idea, though, to put on the hard hats for Game 2 and push back. A 17-rebound discrepancy is flirting with danger. Heck, LA had only eight more total rebounds than Utah did offensive.
Kobe told the media on Monday: “We ain’t no punks.” Meaning, like Tom Petty, they won’t back down. That’s fine, but they need to body up.
I don’t like Pau Gasol guarding Mehmet Okur on the perimeter. Takes Pau too far from the defensive boards. Put Radmanovic on Memo, Vlad Rad is long enough for that cover.
Okur may be from Turkey but he didn’t play like one, pulling down 19 boards and choking their gizzards on the boards.
-It has Okurred to me that Memo should not be allowed to get 19 rebounds ever again in this series.
-Believe it or not:The scruffy Okur has a hot wife. She’s a former Miss Turkey.
-Do you think playing against D-Will every day in practice for a year helps Derek Fisher in his matchup against
Deron Williams? Fisher’s ability to stay in front of Williams was a huge component in the Lakers’ 11-point win, one pretty overlooked by just about everybody.
The Lakers didn’t box out but one thing they did do was converge on Williams with big bodies once he got into the paint.
Williams looked frustrated. Fish’s six steals were another reflection that after that full year up in Utah, he knows the Jazz almost as well as they know themselves.
Which leads me to…
-Stat of the game: Sasha outscored D-Will, 15-14.
Key stretch: Sasha’s quick 9 points in the second quarter on and and-one and two triples.
Vujacic isn’t just some novelty act with an effeminate headband. He’s a knockdown shooter and a critical component in the Lakers’ explosiveness.
-No one can guard Kobe, except maybe Tayshaun Prince a little, but Jerry Sloan had better find someone other than Brewer. Anybody else. That is a ginormous overmatch.
-I love Pau and everything he meansto the Lakers, but there is still a small part of me that wonders about the soft thing, especially if it were KG and Kendrick Perkins in the Finals.
-I wouldn’t get overly excited about the Lakers being the only unbeaten (5-0) team in the playoffs, winning by an average of 12 points a game. But I wouldn’t minimize it, either. It’s not the Toronto Raptors they’re beating. Denver won 50, Utah 54 during the regular season — in a ridiculously tough conference, too.
-Andrew Bynum is in New Jersey for a second opinion on his knee.
Here’s my opinion: there must be something wrong.
If the knee does gets scoped, a possible option, if you’re the Lakers, forget the playoffs. You’re happy if The Next Big Thing is healthy by training camp.
-Look for a minimum two-minute standing ovation and some tears when Kobe gets his MVP hardware from David Stern on Wednesday night.
Ted Green is Senior Sports Producer for KTLA Prime News and a former sportswriter for the L.A. Times and National Sports Daily. He’s been covering the Lakers as a writer, broadcaster and TV producer since 1973.
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