LAKERS RIP JAZZ IN FIRST ROUND SERIES PREVIEW

The Utah Jazz have been in a downward spiral to finish the regular season, but heading into Tuesday night’s game against the Lakers in Los Angeles still had an outside chance to improve on their 8^th place playoff seeding.  That would require defeating the Lakers on their home court, however, and the home team was definitely not in a charitable mood.  Utah hung around for the first half before the Lakers put them away in the second en route to a 125-112 victory.  The Jazz will be back in Los Angeles this weekend to being their first round playoff series.

Adding insult to injury for the Jazz was the fact that the Lakers won with relative ease despite limiting the minutes of Kobe Bryant and extending the playing time of their entire bench.  Kobe scored 16 points in only 26 minutes of play, while Andrew Bynum led the team in scoring with 22 points.  Pau Gasol added 20, Lamar Odom chipped in for 16 off the bench, and reserve guard Sasha Vujacic made the most of his extra playing time with 15 points.

For Utah, Deron Williams’ ‘double/double’ included a team high 25 points to go with 13 rebounds.  Andrei Kirilenko added 20 off the bench, while Carlos Boozer scored 16 points and pulled in 9 boards.  Ronnie Brewer (14) and Paul Milsap (10) rounded out the Jazz’s double digit scorers.  While the Jazz slumped down the stretch with 7 losses in their final 9 games, the Lakers ended up winning 65 games—the third most in franchise history.  With the many great teams the Lakers have had, that means something and as Kobe Bryant noted after the game, even more so with the injuries to Bynum and others this year:

"Sixty-five wins with some of the injuries we've had is an accomplishment.”

Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, meanwhile, wasn’t exactly in the mood for pep talks:

"We didn't give them much of a battle and knowing that we're going to have to play them again, it looks pretty bleak. Hate to say that, but it's one of those things."

The Lakers are now 16-3 against the Jazz since moving to the Staples Center, and Sloan came very close to ‘throwing in the towel’ before the first round playoff series even started:

"There's a whole new season starting. Everybody's healthy, so we'll get everybody on the same page and see what it's all about. We're just like a little dent in the road as far as they're concerned. They're very comfortable playing against us, and obviously they should be."

The Lakers beat the Jazz in last season’s Western Conference semi-finals 4 games to 2 en route to the NBA finals where they lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.