Another Utah-L.A. Series

Since the all-star break in February, and maybe even before then, Jazz fans had been hoping for a 2 or 3 seed for one major reason: Avoiding the Lakers in the 2nd round. No need to dwell on it, we all know what happened.

Here we are, a day away from game 1 against the Los Angeles Lakers. I am not going to lie. I am pretty nervous. I am trying everything I can think of to find reasons to believe that we can win a series against this team. Here is what I have come up with:

-Andrei Kirilenko might be back sometime in this series and he is the only one capable of matching up with Lamar Odom, who to me, seems to be the a major problem for us.

-Lamar Odom has been pretty bad in the last few weeks. Below average I would say, but it seems to me that he knows he is such a tough match-up for us, we can't bank on him being pretty much MIA, like he was in round 1.

-An MRI after the Lakers first round series revealed a small tear in Bynum's meniscus. He is listed as questionable for game 1, and day-to-day.

-Ronnie Price and Wes Matthews are coming off of great games, and we need them both, badly, against the Lakers.

-L.A. has been pretty inconsistent. Kobe seems to be either on or off, and is slowing down.

-Ron Artest, despite shooting something like 5-27 from the 3 in round 1, continues to just chuck them up. Let's hope he continues to shoot, a lot.

After all this, in my mind, this series will come down to one thing. We have Deron Williams, who is matched up against Fisher. Williams is our strength, and Fisher is their weakness. This is the most important factor. If we are going to have a chance in this series, Deron Williams is going to have to be aggressive. He has to attack. He cannot be the guy that defers a lot of shots to run the offense, as he does a lot. Not saying that it's a bad thing, but against the Lakers, he can't go on those quarter long stretches where it seems like he doesn't take a single shot. Deron Williams is the best shot we have at winning this series. Everyone else has to play well obviously, but we need the Deron Williams that averaged 28 and 11 through 5 games.

If I am Phil Jackson, I have Kobe matched up on Williams, and Fisher of Matthews. As soon as the Lakers realized that Russell Westbrook was the only reason OKC was hanging with the Lakers, they took Fisher off of him and put Kobe on him. They won the next 2. In my personal opinion, I am shocked Phil didn't realize that at halftime, of game 1.

I remain optimistic, and anything can happen.
Sean