Here’s what Phil Jackson said Sunday about the Houston Rockets, who gamely challenged the Utah Jazz again in Game 4 before falling behind in the series, 3-1: “They really have a team spirit that’s great to watch.”
Jackson was trying to be kind in referring to Houston as doing pretty well with “inexperienced talent.”
Bottom line, though: We’re learning something about the Jazz just by its inability to sweep away overachieving Houston. Utah fell into the human-nature hole after winning the first two games in Houston – where the Rockets sorely missed injured Rafer Alston – and relaxed upon coming home for Game 3, won by Houston with Alston back. The Jazz should’ve at least regrouped after that and beaten Houston by like 20 points in Game 4, but Utah instead staggered to the finish in a four-point victory. To be fair, Jackson is right about how hard the Yao Ming-less Rockets are playing – especially compared to the fat-cat, fat-payroll Denver Nuggets, who should reward Allen Iverson for being the only willful player on the team by letting him take every shot Monday night in Game 4 against the Lakers.
But to think the Jazz can beat the Lakers in the next round, you have to believe Utah has a championship-level mentality that it has not shown at all against Houston. Utah is winning strictly because it has better players, and that’s not going to be enough to derail the Lakers.The Jazz has a fundamental problem in that – like Denver – it lacks a defender who can even contemplate guarding Kobe Bryant solely on his own. Ronnie Brewer got Utah excited by smothering Bryant in an exhibition game in Anaheim, but that was the disinterested, trade-minded Bryant.
Matt Harpring can be physical with Bryant, and Andrei Kirilenko can bother Bryant’s jumper, but it’s not a good situation for a Jazz defense that basically game-plans to protect its paint. Bryant is good enough to make jumpers – something Tracy McGrady hasn’t done in this postseason (38.3 field-goal percentage, 15.4 three-point percentage) – and then take the subsequent lanes for penetration to Utah’s paint.
The Jazz was only the NBA’s 17th-best field-goal defense in the regular season, which ranked even worse than Denver at No. 14 (the Lakers were sixth). Although Utah’s precision-cutting, physical-picking style on offense is wholly different from Denver’s hip-hop, freelance approach on offense, the problem for both in a series against the Lakers is that they can’t stop Bryant and the triangle offense.
The Lakers went 3-1 against Utah in the regular season, averaging 111 points on 51.8 percent field-goal shooting. Bryant averaged 29.8 points on 56.3 percent shooting from the field and 55.6 percent on threes.
There’s no reason to believe those sorts of numbers will change drastically in the next round.
– Kevin Ding, The Orange County Register
I disagree
[...] probably be Ronnie Brewer on Bryant to start. It’s a tough call for Utah, but a critical one, as explained further in this column I did for SoCal Sports Now. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]