Jazz Not Music to Lakers’ Ears

The Bulls had the Pistons. The Pistons had the Celtics.

The Lakers have the Jazz.

If locating the problem is half the battle, consider the Lakers victorious at least in one regard in the Western Conference finals. They have identified the mountain in front of them, even if they have been unable to get so much as a foot beyond the base. So it is that the team that eliminated them last year in the second round is on the verge of doing it again this year in the conference finals.

“Since I’m a Packer fan, it’s like the Packers when they were always trying to beat Dallas,” Nick Van Exel said. “They could never beat Dallas. I feel the same way. I said coming into this year, one team I was worried about in the West was Utah. And here they are. Here they are, sticking us.

“Because of the way they play, it’s like project guys going to play against a bunch of guys who set the pick and rolls; who do the little things while the project guys always want to do the little fancy behind-the-back dribbles and do the spectacular plays. That’s exactly what this is like.

“Maybe it’s the age. We feel if we go out there and just lace up the shoes and run around and do the dunks and do all the little things that we can win. But it’s not like that.”

The first three games have shown that.

“It’s shown a lot,” Van Exel said.

“We felt very confident coming into this series. We knew it was going to be tough playing in Utah, but we felt that we could win in Utah. And for them to come here and beat us the way they did [Friday night], it was very shocking. It really hurt.

“Maybe it’s we just can’t beat Utah yet. Maybe we haven’t climbed over that hill to being a championship-caliber team yet.”

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While the defense is been humbled by the Jazz and its exemplary unselfishness, the Laker offense continues to struggle, down to 38.8% shooting and 53 assists against 43 turnovers, after finishing second in the league in the former and seventh in the latter.

“They do too many individual things,” Utah’s Chris Morris said. “They don’t play as a unit. If they played as a unit, you couldn’t stop them. I don’t know if it’s an ego thing or what.”

Shaquille O’Neal has 14 turnovers in the three games and is averaging 3.6 per contest in the playoffs. That’s up from the 2.9 during the regular season.

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The Lakers were 53-2 during the regular season when they lead entering the fourth quarter, but have already lost three times in nine such occasions in the playoffs: once at Portland, once at Seattle and once at Utah.