Playoff Preview:Jazz vs Nuggets

(4) Jazz vs (5) Nuggets

The tale of two momentums. Utah is playing as well as any team in the league. They are not considered a good defensive team but they are pretty damn good establishing their tempo and also versatile enough to adjust to other temps when they have to. They have a great leader in Deron Williams and one of the better coaches out there. About Sloan, do we take him for granted? I mean if he wasn't Jerry freaking Sloan he would have at least 3 COY awards in the last 10 years. How did this happen?

Oh well, the other -Denver - is sinking as a rock. They totally lost their mojo when coach Karl went down and lost their toughest guy when KMart went down. Their are getting Martin back but no their mojo. I'm impressed how a team with Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups can look so off in an important stretch of the season. I liked this team. For my money if they had gone for an extra big in February ( Camby, Thomas, Collison ) they would have been right there with the Lakers ( even higher considering how the Lakers are playing these days) but they did nothing and now they look like a first round exit. What a shame.

Utah have their own issues with injuries. Kirilenko won't play this series and Okur still hurt but he is scheduled to be in uniform. Carlos Boozer got his rib cage hurt or something like that. He is a big guy, I'm not even considering him being injured. How much of the momentum was killed by their last game lost of the season, the ass kicking Phoenix gave them, at home no less.

Denver and Utah are 500 road teams. Denver has come advantage and without Utah's Kirilenko there is really nobody who can stay with Carmelo. To be honest this is a toss-up and I'm thinking of giving the series to Denver just caused of the Kirilenko injury and the fact that I'm relying on Chauncey to have a good series matching somehow the damage Deron Williams is going to inflict on them.

Basketball Gods prediction: Nuggets in 7

Win Scale (From 1: "The refs gave them that game. Are they really this bad?" to 10: " This is the best team ever! Make me yours" ) 6

First Round: Jazz vs Rockets

4. Jazz (54-28) vrs 5. Rockets (55-27)

Regular Season Series: UTA 2-1

Point Differencial: UTA +2.0

No Yao Ming and no Rafer Alston for a couple of games sound like a hell of a problema for Tracy McGrady and the Houston Rockets as they facethe second best home team in the West. One of the reason oh Houston's streak was the solid, let's face it overachieving, performance of RaferAlston and know he won't be there for the first two games. That leaves TMac to do ALL the offense creating from scoring to setting up the other Rockets 100% of the time. Their bench have to be huge and most of them are too green, Boby Jackson being the only one playoff tested.

Jerry Sloan's Utah are the good ol' hard working pick and roll team we are used to. But they are still young and some cracks are still there. Deron Williams sometimes (SOMEtimes like a very few) he doesn't show up and the entire Jazz team struggles. If TMac wants to be introduced to the second round for the first time in his life their focus should be 100% defensive -think Spurs or Pistons defensive- and principally stopping Deron Williams. Utah is not a good matchup for Houston but if they can hold DWill they have a hell of a shot. Houston is a excellent defensive team (They are number two in defensive rating) but you get the feeling that as the series grow old Jerry Sloan will made the necesary tweeks.

X Factor: Bobby Jackson. He needs to be agresive no matter what. He's going to start the games that Alston can't play and the first guy off çthe bench when Alston comes back.He needs to score and showcase that playoffs savvy the sometimes wins games.

Basketball Gods' prediction: UTA 4-2