- one is the drive to the basket overpowering people like an NFL running back. And he gets more calls than others because he is “The King”
- the other is the 3-pt shot.

He has no mid-range jumper, no post game. I agree he is still young and within a few years he will develop some of those things.

After yesterday’s game, everybody wants to blame Mike Brown. It’s not Brown’s fault if he gets his star player to do the 2 best things he is good at and the same player unfortunately is not able to do those things.

Then there is talk about crappy teammates. Cleveland has 4 all-stars in their starting lineup: Lebron, Big Z, Ben Wallace and Szcerbiak. That’s double what the Lakers have. Apart from that they have 3-4 good players in Gibson, Delonte West, Varejao and Devin Brown. This team is certainly not lacking in talent. At the same time, players like HUghes and Gooden are doing much better with the Bulls than they ever did with the Cavs.

One thing I need to mention, if you talk to actual Jazz fans they will easily say that D Will is the most popular player. Most of my buddies have a man crush on him. He is definitely the MVP of our team. It is true that Korver’s jersey has been the hottest selling since he arrived, but that probably has more to do with the fact that most fans already had the Boozer or Williams jersey. Korver was the new guy and therefore became popular, especially among the women. Looking around the arena you are just as likely to spot a Milsap jersey than you are a Korver jersey. Talk to any girl here in Utah and they will tell you how hot Korver is. Therein lies his popularity. It’s the girls that love him. Not for his play but for his looks. The same could have been said for Brian Russell years ago. All of the female jazz fans thought he was so hot. So in those regards, I don’t think it is much of a race issue.

On topic…

Utah is just doing too many stupid fouls, like pushing the back in rebound. If they call the first time, don’t do it again… And Boozer has been doing it for YEARS now. The rest, it’s just physical basketball, and if they cut those stupid fouls, I think the number of fouls for each team gets more balanced (except for Kobe, who keeps taking the punishment).

Utah is just following two rules…
1 – No easy basket
2 – We may lose, but your body will remember us tomorrow

Nothing wrong with that (if the refs keep calling it like they should).

About tonight’s game, I think we have a better shot at winning game 4 than game 3. The crowd will be insane today…(not getting into X and O’s again… either I’m usually wrong or people don’t care;))

*I think that Utah needs to do less fouling if they want to be called for less fouls. I’m all for physical play, but one of the reasons you play physical ball is for the mental advantage you gain by consistently *letting the opposition know you’re there* as I like to say. But the lakers are a mentally tough team, so that goes out the window…

*As for uneven officiating, if you notice what types of fouls are being called against the Jazz, it’s not from contact from drives at the rim, it’s on reach-ins on the perimeter/off ball bumping and holding/pushing on rebounds. Kobe may be going to the line a lot, but those aren’t all on shot attempts, some of those are because he’s drawing fouls when the Jazz are already in the penalty. Shoot, the Lakers (just like the Jazz) aren’t even getting a lot of calls at the rim. I have seen plenty of plays from both teams where I thought there should have been fouls called, especially when players are driving and get all the way to the rim only to be deterred (see: receive contact) when they try to finish. I actually think a lot of Utah’s fouls have to do with the tremendous speed and quickness advantage the lakers have (like Doug Collins mentioned).

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