From The Salt Mines

What papers in the Salt Lake City area are saying about the series:

DOUG ROBINSON, DESERET NEWS

Memo to the Lakers:

It isn’t the officiating. It isn’t Utah’s “dirty” play. It isn’t Karl’s kicks or John’s moving screens or the Jazz’s holding and grabbing. And while we’re at it, it isn’t the air, the hotel accommodations or the breakfast you ate.

You have been so busy looking for someone to blame for your 2-0 deficit in the Western Conference finals that you’ve forgotten to look at the most obvious source of your problems: you.

Has anybody failed to notice? The Lakers have been playing the blame game. They were blaming the Jazz as early as a week ago and that was before the series began. They were just getting a head start on the blame game, we suppose.

MICHAEL C. LEWIS, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

The Los Angeles Lakers must recover pretty well.

The day after suffering their second straight loss to the Jazz to start the Western Conference finals, starters Robert Horry and Derek Fisher took advantage of a day off Tuesday to tape an episode of “The Bold and the Beautiful.”

Horry and Fisher will appear as themselves on the CBS-TV daytime drama, largely because they’re fans of teen R&B; artist Usher, who also will appear.

Horry, at least, might have been anticipating the meeting a tad too eagerly; he scored only one point in the Lakers’ 99-95 loss to the Jazz in Game 2 on Monday.