Lakers try to Jazz it up, but it’s a Muzak series

What a waste of a beautiful Sunday unless you are into public executions.

By way of the score, it looks as if the Dodgers were also playing the Utah Jazz, but at least they were outside.

It got so bad inside stuffy Staples Center, Kobe Bryant was at the free-throw line and the crowd was chanting, “MVP, MVP.” Odd, I thought, fans would be calling for LeBron James so early in the playoffs.

But then Lakers fans haven’t gotten it right all season.

If you live next door to a Lakers fan and had no interest in the team while listening to your neighbor all season long, you’re probably surprised the Lakers made the playoffs.

I know the Lakers really weren’t much fun to watch this season, winning the conference title in a walk by 11 games, but at times there was talk around here of the sky falling. Or Luke Walton shooting yet again.

I understand if someone’s a Clippers fan. As far as they are concerned, the world is flat, and when their team steps off the cliff, it’s a good bet they are going to hit bottom.

But these are the Champs we’re talking about, everyone in the joint back on Oct. 28 when it all started knowing the Champs were going to finish the season in the NBA Finals.

The Champs have Phil Jackson, Kobe, Pau Gasol and the NBA referees, so why all the angst?

I’d expect such up-and-down mood swings from Portland yahoos, folks who have nothing else in their lives other than the big show in town, and every game’s results determining their happiness or disappointment.

We’ve got some people here acting as if they were reared in Angryville.

First of all, Vladimir Radmanovic wasn’t good enough for you, then it was Walton and now Jordan Farmar. What’s the problem? The Champs winning by 12 points instead of 22?

“This is a game we could have won by 25 or 30,” Lamar Odom said after beating the Jazz by 13 points, and even the players aren’t happy with their own team.

I can understand Kobe’s former housekeeper always finding fault with the Champs, but it makes no sense why Lakers fans should have any problem with these guys.

Just imagine if the Champs lose a playoff game somewhere in the next several weeks before taking on Cleveland. For a day or two here, it will be like living in Lincoln, Neb.

It’s crazy they even have to play these games. ABC, in a futile effort to present this as some kind of drama, showed Kobe’s walk into Staples Center, everyone in Salt Lake left deflated when he didn’t trip and fall.

The Champs tried to make it feel like a big game, trotting out Jeffrey Osborne for the national anthem. For Utah?

Then they dropped the white sheets from the overheard scoreboard, a tired routine they’ve used all season long for the likes of Memphis and Oklahoma City as well as Utah, which now seems to quiet the crowd for pregame introductions.

The Champs also passed out gold T-shirts to the crowd. To help beat Utah?

“The Journey Begins,” the T-shirts read, “April 19, 2009,” a terrible reminder it will be another six weeks before we get to Cleveland, and who wants to begin a journey in Salt Lake City that ends in Cleveland?

Anyone who does that deserves a parade.

But come on, this is hardly exciting, no matter how TV and the Lakers try to spin it. The Jazz was without Mehmet Okur, and how would you like your NBA fortunes resting on whether you had Mehmet Okur in your lineup?

They played Brevin Knight, a guy not good enough to start half the games with the Clippers a season ago.

“I think our guys were keyed up for the series,” Jackson said, and why wouldn’t the Lakers guys be keyed up for the first game of the NBA playoffs?

Oh, that’s right, they were playing the Jazz.

Talk to the Lakers and the first one they mention is Jerry Sloan. “He’s a tough individual,” Odom said.

For some reason, the Jazz isn’t playing the guy -- arguably the toughest guy it has.

“I think [our guys] were ready,” Jackson said, “and that was the pleasing part about it, that they were here and ready to play this game.”

OK, we get it -- it’s tough to get the guys up for Utah.

That’s probably why they called it quits at halftime, as bored as everyone else here, the Jazz outscoring the Champs, 60-51, the rest of the way.

Now you just know there are going to be some Lakers fans worried -- now that they can’t twist and turn with every Andrew Bynum medical update -- about the Jazz’s second-half win.

There will be talk again of the Champs’ lack of killer instinct, and hold Adam Morrison, how is he ever going to get in a game if they don’t stay ahead by 20?

Raise your hand if the thought of an upset passed through your head for a second when Utah raced to a 4-0 lead -- forgetting for a moment whose side the referees favor. As you know, the referees in this league can fix things.

A phantom call on the Jazz’s best player took the steam out of Utah’s quick start, and then the rout was on, as boring a playoff game as you might see -- before Tuesday night’s game qualifies for consideration.

The cakewalk continues for the Champs after Utah, chances of playing Portland “pretty bleak,” as Sloan might say after Houston’s first win. Then it’s Dallas, San Antonio, Denver or New Orleans, and what’s the record for most boring playoff games in a season?

The Champs are a lock, all right, just as they were Oct. 28 to advance to the Finals, so don’t be a chump and act as if you’re living in Portland.

If there’s any group of fans who should act as if they’ve been there before, it’s the group living here.

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t.j.simers@latimes.com