Derek Fisher inspired the Jazz’s overtime defeat of Golden State, providing one of the greatest memories in the team’s history and receiving one of the arena’s loudest, warmest welcomes after he arrived from the airport and checked into the game late in the third quarter, barely pausing along the team bench.
Eventually, his only shot of the game, a three-pointer at a critical stage in overtime, helped secure the win and created what Sports Illustrated would label the NBA’s signature moment of 2007. Tonight at the ESA Fish is sure to get a different reception especially after his 22-point outing in game 2 in this years playoffs against the Jazz.........


SL TRIB: Fisher: What a difference a year makes
LA TIMES: Lakers’ Derek Fisher continues his journey

Just a little review, Jim lost a series of superbowl bets to The Jakester, and had to dye his hair blue for an entire week.  The dying process along with hours of bad jokes were all caught on video.  Thanks to the magical editing touches of our good friend Chris we have now boiled all of that A+ material down to about six plus minutes...Enjoy.

Listen to all the Post-game interviews in the audio section of the website.

-This game was very similar to Game 1.  The Jazz struggled in the first half only to kick it in gear and play much better in the 2nd, particularly in the 4th to pull as close as five.  For all the effort that’s not good enough against this Laker team.  Unless they can figure out how to put four quarters together this series will be very short.  The positive outlook is the Jazz have played like crap but still pulled close both times.  The negative is they continue to play like crap and are now down 0-2.  As Ross Siler just told me, only 13 teams have come back from a 0-2 Jazz deficit.  Utah was one of those teams pulling it off against Houston a year ago.  These Lakers are not the Rockets.

-When AK and Paul Millsap are more productive than Carlos Boozer you have serious problems.  Boozer is flat out awful.  We are talking Karl Malone meltdown here.  Actually it’s worse.  At least Malone would for the most part just choke at the FT line.  Boozer isn’t even getting there.  It’s clear he’s lost confidence and I gather his teammates are losing faith in him as well.  His jumper continues to be erratic and he refuses to attack the rim like he should.  As for his foul trouble which he blamed all his problems on tonight, I’d be willing to give him some credit if they were aggressive hard fouls but he seems to be picking up ticky-tack calls.  I’m starting to think the Jazz at this point would be better off starting Millsap. 

-Deron Williams struggled once again in the first half but was more aggressive in the second although watching him here at courtside he was letting the refs get to him a bit.  But probably as big of a surprise as Boozer completely collapsing is that Derek Fisher won the point guard battle.  Granted DWill went crazy with the three’s towards the end of the game but Fisher got his points when it really counted.  He’s getting plenty of help defensively it’s just I would never have guessed this would have been the case.

-The Lakers are exposing the Jazz defensively.  They attack the rim whenever they need to regularly getting to the line causing that massive FT line disparity.  And when the Jazz leave them open from outside they have the ability to hit.  As for Kobe...well he’s Kobe and no matter what the Jazz throw at him it’s not going to work.  To reiterate from the last blog posting…only Kobe can stop Kobe.

-Gordon was right on about Staples Center being all about the show.  The pre-game introductions were impressive.  The crowd is into it but is not even close to being as loud as Jazz fans.  I mean at one point they broke into the wave.  The wave?  I thought this crowd was too hip for that kind of stuff.  Of course they also broke into “Utah Sucks” chants periodically and at the end of the game it was the “sweep” chant.  As for the Laker girls… oh the Laker girls.  Very hot but one minor complaint.  They all have the exact same body type.  Tight.  Not that’s such a bad thing.  Just a little variety would be nice.

Here is the split screen NBA commercial “There can only be One” part of the NBA slogan for the playoffs. Is it to late to replace Booze with Milsap in this spot?

We took and edited the best of the Jazz reports from the local TV stations to preview tonight’s important game 2 vs. the Lakers. How will they defend Kobe, will Carlos get going and what’s with Jerry’s hair? See for yourself....(1:51)

Lund is on a diet and his favorite snack food is in the machine, Snowballs. if you don’t know, Snowballs are cream-filled cupcakes covered in a pink coconut mashmallow cream cover. So far he’s staying strong.... What would you snack on out of the 1280 The Zone snack machine and yes or no on Snowballs.

Kobe was asked a question in Spanish at his MVP presser on Tuesday and while he didn’t say “Suck my hot fire eggs” (Not something you want to say to another man), like Hans did on the MMS a couple weeks ago, he was just as bad and he used to speak the language fluently. Jazz fans should hope he plays in game 2 like he speaks Spanish......

An ode to Hans’ “new” car.............

Kobe, Phil Jackson, Jerry Sloan and D-Will postgame from the podium after game 1..........





Kobe had 38 with 12 of his 16 shots in the paint and 21 of 23 from the line he controlled the whole game....





One Kobe move was incredible.......





I’m not a fan of the wuss-i-fication of the NBA when it comes to hard fouls but this is too much.........





Kevin Garnett crushes ZA-ZA.............