While we were having dinner last Sunday, celebrating my dad’s 89th birthday, my brother-in-law, Dr. Jess Marin, one of the country’s best ophthalmologists, came in late and joined me in the table I shared with my wife Lorna and my other bro-in-law Arnold. He immediately asked me if there were any game schedule for his beloved Los Angeles Lakers for the day. Of course he is happy with the Tinseltown outfit presently leading the league with the best over-all win-loss record. But he told me he is wary of one team and that is the Utah Jazz. I asked him why and he explained to me that the Jazz are now more potent with the reactivation of Carlos Boozer and Andrei (AK47) Kirilenko. That kept me puzzled and thereafter I began to fully understand him realizing that the Jazz kept afloat for so long even without Boozer and Kirilenko.
The Jazz currently sits at the third spot in the Northwest Division with a 34-23 card. They are on a five-game winning streak and is tied with the Dallas Mavericks for 6th place over-all in the Western Conference. Boozer played his first game yesterday in a 108-89 rout of the Atlanta Hawks after missing 44 games due to injury. Coach Jerry Sloan must be very happy nowadays with the Jazz being all-healthy, this coming off after losing 140 games to injury and played fifteen different starting lineups for the season.
Come playoff time, the team’s own version of the “Big Three” in Boozer, Kirilenko and the ever-consistent Deron Williams, will be at full strength and this could derail the hope of the Lakers for an encore in the NBA finals. It is really scary to see the Jazz in full throttle and definitely, is not a good news for the rest of the Western title contenders. Larry Miller, the team’s late owner, for sure is all smiles somewhere up there in the big sky.
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