Monday morning with the Jazz
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Never realized it was going to be a challenge shifting from writing Twitter updates, with a limit of 140 characters, to actually crafting a complete sentence.
So we’ll let the Jazz players and Coach Jerry Sloan do that. They are in the middle of practice on Monday at the Clippers’ facility in Playa Vista, and look suitably impressed by the swank digs. Clippers assistant GM Neil Olshey was giving a tour to Kevin O’Connor, the executive vice president of basketball operations for the Jazz, and exchanged pleasantries with Carlos Boozer after the morning media session.
(Maybe the Clippers should give Boozer a tour, too, and show him the pool table and plush seats in the players’ lounge. But that’s a topic for another day)
Back to the series, with the Jazz trailing the Lakers, 1-0, and Game 2 on Tuesday at Staples Center.
Sloan: ‘You’ve got to get up and guard people. It’s not regular season. We’re playing, to some extent, like it’s a regular-season game. They’re too good a team to play that way. They’ve got a lot of things they can hurt you with. Their bench is very good. They pass the ball pretty well and they defend you ... they make it tough.’
Boozer happened to agree with Sloan on the issue of nastiness.
‘We’ve got to get nasty,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to play with an attitude, that’s what he means. Some of us have it, but not collectively. We have to have it. The whole team, from 1 to 15. We have to be nasty as a group. That’s what we have to do. He’s right.’
It’s always good to check perspective outside of L.A. and Salt Lake City. The Suns’ Steve Nash, one of my favorite Canadian analysts, devoted one paragraph on his Facebook page to the Lakers-Jazz, on his NBA Playoffs Commentary, Day 2:
The Lakers did what everyone expected them to in Game 1 with the Jazz. After a second-quarter explosion, it seemed they got a little bored and took their foot off the Jazz’s necks. The Jazz are proud and well coached, but unless they have two Deron Williams, it doesn’t look like they’ll win more than a game or two on their home court ... if that.
Good stuff. Maybe The Times can sign up Nash to be a guest Twitterer.
-- Lisa Dillman