Official Lakers vs. Jazz Game 5 Thread!

The Jazz have evened the series at 2-2 and the Lakers will be coming home trying to hold their home court advantage. Although Kobe Bryant was injured and ineffective during the overtime period, they will look to rebound from their loss.

 The Lakers must limit their turnovers and play better defense especially against the outside shots and the penetrating Deron Williams.

In addition, Pau Gasol must be given touches early in the game in order to the opposing bigmen down in the key and hopefully in foul trouble and Vladimir Radmanovic must play better defense if he wants to get quality minutes.

Hoping for a Lakers win tonight!!!

Kobe will be ok he is a warrior and Gasol needs to step up and not let Boozer push him around.  He needs to limit his turnovers and make sure he dominates because he has the ability to.  Odom needs to just keep doing what he is doing because he is just slicing and dicing that defense.  Vlad needs to not foul and so does Fisher.  Fisher needs to be out on that court for more than 5 minutes in the 1st quarter to start it off.  Farmar needs to foul Deron Williams if he knows he has a step on him because we are not going to need Farmar in the end of the game.  Sasha needs to keep hitting his shots and be ready and be careful for talking to the refs because he was getting a bit touchy the last 2 games with arguing to the refs the last thing we need is T and loose another guy for a game.  Turiaf I feel was a flagrant 1 foul only because he was going for the ball its tough cause he is such a big guy and so much intensity it is hard to stop that kind of force in the first place but it is what it is.  We need to start out of the gate with intensity and hold the home court!! I think we have a good shot just as we have in every game and it will be great game can not wait to watch. 

LETS GO Lakers!!!!

The foul by Ronny Turiaf was a joke and the officiating in this series has been horrible. In the last game, Lamar Odom was clearly fouled on a lay-up and the officials had a no-call on the play and within a few minutes, Andrei Kirienko is barely touched by Odom near the basket and they call a foul with the shot.

If they are going to let them play, then let them play, but I hate when the officials are not consistent with their officiating especially when a team has the momentum, they tend to call fouls in their favor.

What is the status on Ronny Turiaf? Is he suspended for the flagarant 2 foul?

I'm looking for Farmar to rebound from his recent doldrums and play some meaningful and productive minutes in this game tonight.  I also think we're going to see Kobe play like the true warrior and MVP that he is (...I love saying that, the MVP that he is...)

I also look for significant contributions from both Sasha & Luke, buoyed by the home crowd, and big games from Lamar & Pau.  It's all going to come together tonight, Laker fans, so get ready.  Ronny is also going to be key in helping to keep the Jazz big men in check tonight.

Lakers 112
Jazz 99

Tacos tonight, Laker fans!!!

GO LAKERS!

Jefe I agree with you 100% Farmar is going to play a lot better.

The keys to the game and the series will be defense.  We need to limit the effectiveness of both Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer on the offense side. 

If the officiating holds true to form it will be the Jazz sitting their starters early.  All those rips, er. turnovers on the Lakers @ Energy Solutions will be called fouls @ Staples.  We can't let up though, this is the swing game in the series and whoever wins tonight will be playing in the WCF.  Don't you think for a minute that Jerry Sloan hasn't mentioned this about a million times.   

As a gamer we all know too well that when your health goes down you are in trouble, after game two I thought there was no way that the Jazz would be able to win four out of six, but I was counting on a healthy Kobe.  With that said if Kobe is not at least 80% tonight we may end up losing four out of five.  He really is the MVP and unfortunately his health, or lack there of, might just prove it.  We can win without