Two down, 14 to go for Lakers.

The road to the ring for Los Angeles will be anything but easy, they'll make sure of that themselves. The Lakers continued their winning ways taking a 2-0 series lead over the Utah Jazz but, as always, they had to flirt with disaster before hitting the showers. The first half saw Kobe Bryant deliberately playing the distributor role, which for a shooting guard he is more adept at doing than given credit for. The biggest problem seemed to be maintaining focus after building leads as much as twenty points. The Lakers had a typical defensive letdown at the end of the half, giving up too many easy buckets. The Jazz finished the second quarter strong with a 9-0 run lead by point guard extraordinaire Deron Williams who at times seemed as if he was the only Utah player with any semblance of heart…A place Kobe knows all to well from the Smush Parker/Kwame Brown era of a few seasons ago. D-Will may ball like a man possessed, but his hair looks straight out of one of those aerosol hair-in-a-can mops. I don’t mean to pick on the man but it just looks plain weird, almost like a Julius Ceasar-like helmet.

Andrew Bynum started strong but finished anything but, fumbling passes and looking to the zebras to bail him out rather than attacking the rim with purpose. There will be no quarter given Andrew…anything you get will have to be earned, so start going to the hole with the intention of inflicting damage. Young Bynum apparently hasn’t found a way to channel his inner anger yet…hard to do when Playboy bunnies on the shoulders are part of the rehab process. I have an idea Drew, imagine the Jazz are trying to add them to their harem and for you to keep them, you have to outplay the Jazz on the hardwood….Motivation enough kid?

Derek Fisher provided the type of veteran leadership needed to spark the team with key shots and numerous hustle plays, even ending up on his back after flying over the fans in the front row while diving for the ball. The body may not allow him to be the defensive player he once was but his effort can’t never be questioned. The man has the heart of a lion.

Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza and Shannon Brown made the Lakers bench look nothing like the weak balsa wood it had been over the second half of the season. Everytime the Jazz had a little pep in their step and closed the lead to single digits, the Lakeshow had a response. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t glamorous, it wasn’t the Showtime type win that Los Angeles fans enjoyed in the 80’s. It was a victory however and one step closer to the second round. One step closer to the ultimate goal, a championship. With the series on its way back to Salt Lake I expect a very different, more inspired Jazz squad and an especially raucous crowd. You can be sure they haven’t forgotten last season’s playoff loss to L.A.

The Lakers play with fire more often than a pyromaniac at the Zippo factory, constantly offering hope to teams that are down by what seem to be insurmountable leads. I can’t quite grasp what goes on in the mind of Phil Jackson. He watches the team he gets millions of dollars a year to instruct on the fundamentals of the game, yet sits idle when his players repeatedly commit cardinal sins on the court. It makes for exciting games and last second drama which plays to the whole Hollywood feel here in LaLaLand but drives me absolutely insane as a basketball fan.

In one of my favorite movies of all time, The Shawshank Redemption, Morgan Freeman’s character Red utters a line that hope is a dangerous thing…I would wholeheartedly agree. Giving teams hope is the most dangerous thing you can do because they start to believe. They start to believe they can compete. They start to believe they can comeback. They start to believe they can win.

Hope is a dangerous thing Phil.

It’s your job to call time outs to quell comeback runs and break momentum. It’s your job to remind players that hope is exactly what you want to take from the opposition. Its your job to impress upon your players just how perilous it is to allow teams to believe. Opening the door and inviting disaster over and over again will eventually come back to haunt your team. Tonight that didn’t happen. Tonight L.A. held home court and walked away with a 10 point victory, but the Jazz will go back home with a new sense of confidence, a chip on their shoulder and more importantly…hope.