Tune into ABC this Sunday April, 19th at 3:00pm for game one of the Lakers/Jazz first round NBA playoff series.

The settling of the up and down western conference standings has finally come. The matchups are set, and the playoffs begin this Saturday April 18th. The first bout features the number one seeded Lakers going against the number eight seeded Utah Jazz. Time to discuss.

The Utah Jazz have all season long been noted as a team who can be dangerous come playoff time, and especially for the Lakers since they were able to take their series last season to six games. But that was back earlier this year when the Jazz were in contention for a playoff seed as high as number two. Now the only recognition they are getting is that they can pose problems for the Lakers. Too bad they won’t pose enough problems four times.

The Jazz are led by one of the league’s top point guards in Deron Williams with his 19.4ppg and 10.7apg. They are also spurred by the much improved play of Ronnie Brewer, Paul Millsap, and even C.J. Miles. If you throw in the scrappy play by international stars Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko, as well as the three point baller in Kyle Korver, you most certainly have a solid unit. However, the Jazz’s bad side is not too promising.

Guys like Okur, Kirilenko, Brewer, etc do not have the ability to take over a game and can barely create their own shots. When you throw in the fact that the one other guy on the team who could have done that besides Williams, Carlos Boozer, has struggled to get back into the swing of things since his recent return from injury, then the Jazz are nothing more than a team that may be running on fumes by games four and five of the series.

The Lakers on the other hand, now there’s a squad! No one on the Jazz (and much less the entire NBA) is the equivalent or on par with Kobe Bryant. No one on the Jazz is as consistent and solid as Pau Gasol, and the one guy who was close, Boozer, is still catching up. Another thing L.A. has going for them is that there big man who recently returned from injury, Andrew Bynum, has actually transitioned a lot smoother than Boozer.

But the most telling characteristic about each team is this; the roles of the Utah Jazz players are mostly defined by what Deron Williams can do each night on the court whereas for the Lakers… everybody on the team knows their role.

I believe that the high dependence for success resting on the shoulders of one player in Utah (Williams) against the unit on a mission to absolve last season’s failures in L.A. will undoubtedly prevail in five games. See ya Jazzies.

Carlos Boozer of the Utah Jazz

In the past few weeks, the Utah Jazz have the leagues’ best hot streak with four straight wins. Two of those wins have come at home where they are 24-6 against the Lakers and the Celtics. Although Garnett did not play the second half, they still held serve and beat two experienced teams and one champion.

With Deron Williams’s career highs in points per game with 19.2 and an excellent 10.2 assists per game, it means this guy is averaging a double-double per outing. Carlos Boozer has been out for a while, but the other players have been picking up the slack: Ronnie Brewer with 13.5 points per game, Paul Millsap 14.6ppg, 9.2 rebounds per game, and even C.J. Miles with 10.0ppg.

The Jazz are set to welcome back Boozer’s 20.5ppg, and 11.7rpg. With that added to the two vets of Mehmet Okur, 18.0ppg, 8.4rpg, and Andrei Kirilenko 12.6ppg, and 5.5rpg and Utah has a seven man rotation that can averaging double-digit points per game. Last season they took L.A. to six hotly contested games in the second round of the playoffs. What’s even better for the Jazz is they pose a lot of matchup problems for opposing teams with their height, size, and strength.

I am not saying the Jazz are in the Finals already, but they could turn some heads and go as far as the Western Conference Finals.