Familiar story for Lakers, Jazz

LOS ANGELES -- Second verse, same as the first.

The Lakers' 119-109 victory against the Jazz on Tuesday in the second game of their first-round series (RECAP | BOX) couldn't have played out any more like the first if they had simply replayed the tape on the jumbotron for the capacity crowd at the Staples Center.

Lakers take big first-half lead. Lakers lose big lead in the second half. Jazz make late-game push. Lakers come through in the end.

After the way the Lakers finished Game 1 on Sunday, a disgruntled Phil Jackson wrote on the dry erase board in the Lakers' locker room, "15? Not like that ..." In other words, the Lakers weren't going to win 15 more playoff games and a championship by playing that way down the stretch. Well, luckily for the Lakers, they can win four games like this against the Jazz.

The one constant during Jerry Sloan's career has been defense. He was one of the most feared defenders in the league as a player and instilled that same toughness into the teams he coached. But that hasn't been the case this season. Even at 67, Sloan might be the nastiest defender on the Jazz bench if he wanted to slip on a uniform. At least he might have slowed down the Lakers, who once again jumped out to an early 20-point lead.

After the Lakers scored 62 first-half points in Game 1 and won 113-100, Sloan said his team wasn't nasty enough. Sloan joked that he tried to make up for that during the off-day by giving "them some nasty food. We'll see if that did any good."

Well, it didn't. If anything, the Jazz were worse defensively Tuesday than they were in Game 1. They gave up 66 points in the first half, with 38 of those points coming in the paint, a point of concern for Sloan coming into the series. Worse yet, they committed only one foul in the first quarter as the Lakers stormed out to a 41-27 lead. As a player, Sloan would have at least knocked a couple of guys on the floor before he let an opponent score more than 40 points in the first quarter.

"They do a good job of coming at you early and try to blow you out early," said Jazz forward Carlos Boozer, who had 20 points and 10 rebounds. "They are a very efficient team. They run their cuts hard, they make shots and they play good defense. We need to try to combat that, make them work a little harder, hopefully make them miss a couple more shots."

Sure, the Jazz were able to come back and make it a game, closing the gap to three points late, but spotting the Lakers a 20-point lead and letting them executive their offense so easily early in the game is no recipe to beat the Western Conference favorites. Just the fact that the Jazz were even able to come back from that kind of deficit should give them hope heading to Salt Lake City for Game 3 on Thursday, although they'll probably need more than just hope.

Deron Williams. It must be lonely at times to be Williams, the only Jazz player who seems to understand what it means to play tough, playoff basketball. Williams scored a game-high 35 points and had nine assists, four steals and two blocked shots. If the Jazz could clone four more players like him, they'd probably be the favorites in this series. As it is, Williams is surrounded by an inconsistent and often lackadaisical group that has only come out to play during second halves in this series.