Lakers Fight Back but Lose to Jazz in Overtime, 123–115

    The Utah Jazz started off fast and once again the Lakers found themselves in foul trouble early. Just as if game three Derek Fisher experienced early foul trouble and had to leave the game with two personal fouls. The Lakers Kobe Bryant was slowed from dealing with back trouble; the Jazz took full advantage and raced out to an early lead.

    The Jazz displayed their speed with two alley-oop dunks to Ronnie Brewer and a 10-to-2 lead in fast break points. Lakers Point Guard Derek Fisher wasn’t alone in foul troubles he as joined by Pau Gasol and Vladimir Radmanovic both with two personal fouls.

    The Lack of production from the bench, and being late in transition defense allowed the Jazz to score on several easy baskets including 10 lay-ups. The Lakers made a modest comeback to get back into the game; but the Jazz ended the first quarter with a 31 – 21 lead. 

    The success the Lakers toward the end of the first quarter and early into the second was from the Lakers emphasizing Kobe Bryant on the low block posting up Ronnie Brewer. The Jazz bench; once again, brought a lot of energy to the game and were in the process of outplaying the Lakers bench when reserve guard Ronnie Price went hard to the basket and was flagrantly fouled by Lakers power forward Ronny Turiaf, who was ejected from the game.

    Ronnie Price went down hard and his head literally bounced off of the court, split open and he had to go to the locker room to receive four stitches. This writer possesses 15 stitches on the left side of my dome from a similar foul on a much lower level but it did bring back memories and six phone calls making it difficult to forget the incident and the subsequent trip to the hospital.

    The Lakers were the team that seemed to respond from the ejection and fought back into the game. The Lakers were the aggressors all of a sudden; Sasha Vujacic came alive with 11 second quarter points. The Lakers played better defense despite two shocking Utah baseline lay-ups.   

    Deron Williams scored 19 points in the first half and single handily kept the Jazz in the game. The Lakers outscored the Jazz 34 – 24 in the second quarter but in my opinion lost the game at free throw line missing 10 free throws. If the Lakers could’ve made the free throws the Lakers would’ve outscored the Jazz by 20 points.

    Everything went right for the Utah Jazz in the first half of the game but the Lakers fought back from being down 11 points with Kobe Bryant scoring the last basket of the half to tie the score at 55 – All.

    A tie score and the momentum in the Lakers favor the Lakers started the third quarter in a very quiet building. The score was tied four times before Utah outscored the Lakers 24-20 in the third quarter and took a 79 – 75 lead into the fourth quarter.

    The Utah Jazz aided by 18 bench points and 12 points off of Laker turnovers. The Lakers down by 12 points; once again, fought their way back into the game. The Lakers closed the game on a 20-to-eight run to tie the score at 108 – All at the end of regulation.

    In the overtime period Derek Fisher fouled out of the game early and the Jazz outscored the Lakers 15 – 7 as Andrei Kirilenko blocked Kobe Bryant’s shot twice and converted a three point play with 35 seconds remaining to seal the deal and give Utah a 123 – 115 win.

    Andrei Kirilenko finished the game with 15 points and five blocked shots.

The Utah Jazz has held their home court and the series tied at two heading back to Los Angeles for game five Wednesday.

Kobe Bryant finished the game bad back and all with finished the game with 33 points, eight rebounds, 10 assists and one steal. Deron Williams had another monster game finishing with 29 points, three rebounds, 14 assists, two steals and one blocked shot.

    The Jazz have the momentum and the Lakers have all of the pressure on them. This is now best of three series with two Laker home games.