EL SEGUNDO — If Utah can finish off Houston on Friday night, the Jazz will have to turn around quickly and start the next round Sunday at Staples Center against the Lakers. If Utah fails Friday night, then the Lakers wouldn’t start the second round until Tuesday night at Staples against the Jazz-Rockets victor. (The Lakers would also not practice Saturday in the latter scenario; in the former scenario, it’d be a serious cramming day of hard-core preparations for Utah.)

You’ve got to think the Jazz, an outstanding home team with flat-out more talent than Houston, will finally be done with the Rockets in Game 6. I’ve heard some people suggest Houston would be the tougher opponent for the Lakers, who did lose the season series to Houston by a 2-1 count, but that’s crazy. Utah has a lot more weapons; the Lakers would sweep the Rockets, who aren’t so amazingly good defensively that the Lakers couldn’t solve that issue and dominate everywhere else.

Either way, the Lakers are in prime position. After the team got the day off Tuesday, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Derek Fisher all rested again Wednesday while the team scrimmaged — and Sasha Vujacic hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to win the scrimmage game. He was mobbed in mock celebration, as Lamar Odom howled: “Playoff basketball, baby!”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 2:15 pm and is filed under 2008 playoffs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.