Mission Accomplished

The Jazz took care of business last night at home as predicted and now it's time to shift gears into full blown Kobe hating mode. A few final thoughts on the Rockets though as we bid them yet another season ending farewell.

1- Tracy McGrady is never going to be a clutch playoff winner. It's just not in his DNA, remember he is related to Vince Carter. Enough of the "superstar" label for this guy.

2- The Scola, Landry, Hayes combo is really quite good. Those three were always playing hard and not afraid of the dirty work. All of them would look really good in Jazz Blue.

3- Rick Adelman is still a first class whiner and that rubs off on his team. The Rockets really need a no excuses, hard nosed coach that does not allow his players to make excuses. Someone like Jerry Sloan.




Moving onto the Lakers, this series is going to look completely different than the one we just saw with the Rockets. Final scores are going to be in the 110 -115 range every night as both team want to push the tempo more. Hopefully the Jazz can keep some of the defensive aggressiveness that they displayed against the Rockets. Look for Boozer to be much more effective as the Lakers interior defense is poor at best. Here is my opinion on how the Jazz stack up to the Lakers, position by position.

PG: Williams vs. Fisher - Advantage Williams, big. Deron is playing MVP caliber ball right and now Fish just can't hang with him.

SG: Kobe vs. Brewer - Advantage Kobe, big. I am pretty sure that Kobe will score a few points in fourth quarter.

SF: Kirilenko vs. Odom - Push. Both guys play a similar all around game with AK being a bigger factor on defense for the Jazz and Odom being a bigger factor offensively for the Lakers.

PF: Boozer vs. Radmanovic - Advantage Boozer, big. Seriously, what are the Lakers going to do with Boozer. Who on this team is going to defend him down low?

C: Okur vs. Gasol - Advantage Gasol, very small. Pau is going to end up scoring more than Okur in this series, but look for Okur to own the glass against him.

Bench: Harpring, Milsap, Korver and Price vs. Farmar, Walton, Vujacic and Turiaf - Push. These are the best two bench units in the playoffs and they are very similar in style. Both teams have the hustling big guy, the sharp shooter, and the athletic streaky point guard.

My prediction for the series is the Jazz in 6, if it goes 7 I don't know if we can win that one on the road. The Jazz should win game 1 because the Lakers are going to be a bit rusty with the long layoff and all of the Kobe for MVP hoopla. After that all they need to do is hold down home court.