I Hate L.A.

Last night was a good game in many ways; Paul Millsap played like an animal, muscling his way to the basket, drawing fouls, wrestling rebounds away from the Laker's big men. Wes Matthews shot lights out from beyond the arc and looked like someone that could succeed in Utah for years to come. Deron Williams played well, but not fantastic. Overall, it appeared that the Jazz should have beaten anybody in the league last night.

But they were going up against the Los Angeles Lakers. I remembered last night that I hate the Lakers. They dominated Utah in total rebounds, including one possession late in the game where they grabbed three offensive rebounds and milked the clock for a whole minute before Ron Artest finally made a layup. At times last night it seemed like Utah was a high school team playing against a very good college team. And the part that hurt the most: the Lakers looked disinterested and bored. The crowd was nonexistent most of the night, occasionally cheering lightly when the game got within four points. Kobe had a couple dominant minutes, but for the rest of the game he was just out there running through plays, giving his teammates a chance to be "the man." Every single Jazz fan was pulling out chunks of hair off their heads throughout the game and diving headfirst into their living room wall trying to end the agony of last night.

So the Jazz are down 0-2 in the series with the Lakers, but they're headed back to SLC for Game 3. The best we can hope for right now is to get a big win at home, get Andrei Kirilenko back, and for the L.A. plane to mysteriously nose-dive straight into the depths of the Great Salt Lake. If you hear that story in the news in the next two days, I never wrote this.