Magic Happens

A great compilation of classic BYU football moments over the past thirty years.

I'm not a fan of the music, but hey, some of you like Soulja Boy, so you may enjoy it more than I.

Either way, great way to spend five minutes in these football-less summer months.

Jazz lose

Key stats from the game today:

1. Jazz shot 37% from the field as a team. To me, that screams, "We beat ourselves, thank you!" Deron couldn't buy a bucket, Boozer was 6-14 and Okur was 7-19.

2. Kobe shot 23 free throws, making 21 of them. Oh, and 23 free-throw attempts is a Lakers playoff FRANCHISE RECORD. That's seven less than Utah's entire team attempted. Wow.

That's it. The Lakers didn't play spectacular, and the Jazz had a real chance to get a huge win. Instead, they decided to shoot like they were playing blindfolded.

I'm thiiiiis close to starting a "Trade Boozer" movement. He's got two, maybe three games to prove he doesn't suck before I become irrational about this.

Jazz/Lakers (and other matchups)

Let's cut to the chase.

The Utah/Los Angeles series was determined the day Jerry West sent Pau Gasol to the Lakers for virtually nothing.

That move was a travesty, and created the closest thing to an unfair advantage as you'll see in a professional sports league with a salary cap.

And while I'm complaining, I'm not happy about the NBA scheduling Game 1 of the series less than 48 hours after they finished off the Rockets. Of course, this could be an advantage for Utah, for three reasons:

1. The Jazz are hot off a dominating win. The Lakers haven't played in over a week. Rust?

2. The Jazz just finished a tough, defensively-minded fight against the Rockets. Going against the Lakers, a rather poor defensive team, will feel like heaven offensively. It's like playing while wearing a weight jacket for two weeks and then taking it off.

3. The Lakers played against a horrible defensive team in Round 1. For them, the second round will be like putting on the weight jacket.

Enough caveats. Here's the breakdown.

The Lakers have no answer for Deron. Fisher can't stop him, and Farmar won't do much defensively, either.

The Jazz have no answer for Kobe, but honestly, who does? Sure, Utah will run a combination of Andrei, Brewer, and maybe even Korver at him, but in the end, Kobe's getting his points and there's nothing you can do to shut him down.

Boozer and Okur can't stop Gasol, but Gasol can't stop them, either. Odom is a talent, but something of a headcase. It's tough to know what he'll do in this series.

In my opinion, the key to beating Kobe's Lakers, as it has always been since Shaq left, is to make him feel like he needs to win the game all by himself. If Kobe goes into hero mode and stops passing the ball, his teammates will start standing around. And when that happens, the Lakers lose.

Unless Kobe is on fire. Because if he is, he's capable of winning the game all by himself.

But more often than not, when he tries taking over in the second quarter, it's a good sign for the opposing team.

It's a risk, but I think it might be a good idea for the Jazz to focus on stopping the rest of the Lakers and letting Kobe do his thing. However, with the Spaniard around, that might backfire into a 42-point, 24 rebound performance from Gasol.

It's tough. Lakers in six.

Of course, if Utah wins Game 1 for the reasons I stated earlier, I'm reserving the right to change my mind.


Detroit/Orlando

The Pistons are capable of winning this series pretty handily. The only question is if they'll motivate themselves enough to do it. If they drop a couple early games, like they did to the Sixers, they'll find themselves watching Orlando go to the Conference Finals.

The thing is, Orlando matches up pretty well against them. Sure, Billups has the edge over Jameer Nelson, but Turkoglu and Lewis are better than Hamilton and Prince, in my opinion. And Jason Maxiell might play center pretty well, but he's not even close to an answer for Dwight Howard.

Rasheed's going to be the key here. Keith Bogans can't begin to defend him, and if Wallace is motivated enough, he could do a lot of damage.

But overmatched at certain positions or not, the Pistons will run you off screens all day and team-ball you to death. It's how they beat the Lakers in 2004.

If Orlando wins this one, consider it Howard's official "welcome to the big time" moment.

I'm calling it Orlando in seven.

Spurs/Hornets

The Spurs are on their typical late-season playoff mission to destroy every team in their path to another NBA championship.

The Hornets are young upstarts with no playoff experience before three weeks ago.

I picked against both of them in the first round.

So keeping in mind that I don't know anything, here's how I see this series going:

Chris Paul and Tony Parker will make each other look silly on defense. Peja will have a difficult time getting his wide-open looks. Tyson Chandler will get far fewer easy alley-oop dunks than he did against Dallas.

Duncan will have a more difficult time against Chandler and West than he did against Amare and Shaq. Ginobili will do his thing and have some great games and some not-so-great games.

In the end, the Spurs will steamroll another talented team on their way to their second straight Western Conference Finals.

Spurs in five.

About time

Jazz beat Houston soundly, 113-91. I don't have much to say about this game, other than

1. Deron is the man.

2. Okur is the man on the boards.

3. Boozer is not the man of anything.

4. T-mac is a great player, albeit inconsistent. ESPN showed a graphic of his scoring in the regular season vs. the playoffs over the years. Yes, his scoring rises from 22 to 28 points per game, but his field-goal percentage drops from 44 to 43 percent and 3-point percentage goes from 34 to only 30%.

Essentially, he scores more by shooting more, and less-efficiently.

I wonder why he never wins in the playoffs.

Anyway, I'm so glad this series is done. If I had to watch Luis Scola dominate Utah's frontcourt for another 48 minutes I would have been very unhappy.

What a wild first round. When making my predictions for these first series, I wrote:

... with Kevin Garnett around, there's no way on earth Boston even comes close to dropping this series.

Celtics in 4.

and

[The Utah/Houston series] is the least interesting of all the West's first-round matchups.

Jazz in six, with a couple blowouts by Utah along the way.

Well, color me way wrong on the first quote. The second quote is technically accurate, but I didn't figure Houston would win one of those blowout games.

Utah/L.A. preview tomorrow.

Hint: I'm not feeling confident about the Jazz's chances.

Bibby is horrible; Johnson, Childress don't mind

Now, obviously the big story from the Celtics/Hawks game tonight is that underdog Atlanta won and forced a Game 7.

But the small story is that Mike Bibby did everything he could to choke this game away for the Hawks.

Sure, Bibby has had great playoff performances in the past. But in the second half of tonight's game, he was nothing short of horrible.

His stat line shows 17 points on 6-17 shooting, 5-8 from the line, 0-4 from the 3. He also dished out seven assists, while not turning it over even once. Not bad.

But in the final fifteen minutes or so, he was a major detriment to the team. I saw him go 1-7 in his final eight shots, often missing as a result of poor shot selection. And when he did have a wide-open three, he missed badly.

Finally, at the free throw line, up two with 7.4 seconds left, he bricked the first to give Boston life in a situation where they should have had none.

Conversely, Joe Johnson was invisible most of the night, but hit big shots when it counted. Hitting the only 3 of the game as time was running out on the shot clock, converting free throws, he scored eight of his 15 in the final quarter.

Especially impressive considering the Celtics were double-teaming him all night.

Then there was Josh Childress, getting offensive rebounds in clutch situations, hitting tough layups or tip-ins, generally doing the little stuff to help his team to victory.

Bottom line: Bibby, stop shooting and give the ball to your younger guys, and you've got a great shot to win Game 7.

MVP race

It bothers me how many people factor playoff success into arguments about who should be the MVP.

Kobe supporters point to the Lakers' sweep of Denver as evidence he's the MVP.

Garnett detractors point to the difficulty Boston is having with the Hawks as evidence that he is not.

It's a regular-season award, people! Hence, Dirk Nowitzki was the MVP last season, despite laying an egg in the first round against Golden State.

If the MVP votes are submitted before the beginning of the playoffs, I wish the NBA would announce the winner before they begin.

Also, we need a Playoffs MVP. A Finals MVP is nice and all, but I'd rather reward someone for outstanding play during the entire postseason rather than just one series, which may be a horrible mismatch (Spurs/Cavs, Lakers/Nets, Lakers/Sixers, Spurs/Knicks, Rockets/Magic).

May 1, 2008 in Rexburg, Idaho