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SALT LAKE CITY - The backdrop was Derek Fisher coming back to the same court where exactly one year ago he finished off what he has described as "life in a day," starting with his infant daughter's cancer surgery in New York and ending with his clutch performance to help the homestanding Utah Jazz to a second-round playoff victory.
Friday night was a reminder of last year in less poignant ways for the Lakers, who suffered their first defeat in their seventh postseason outing, a 104-99 loss to the Jazz in Game 3 of this second-round series. Just like last season's Lakers, these had a Kwame Brown-like center who couldn't hold onto the ball and they couldn't get Jordan Farmar to play wiser than his years at the all-important point-guard position.
New Lakers center Pau Gasol was benched twice in the first half by Coach Phil Jackson for being unable to handle the ball or the referees not calling fouls in his favor as Utah's players aggressively pawed at him. Gasol finished with 12 points, six rebounds, one assist and five turnovers. Farmar, who has been the Lakers' worst rotation player this postseason, missed all six shots and had two turnovers in 16 minutes.
And that's how the Lakers - who came in without a postseason loss when all 15 other teams to qualify had lost at least twice - opened the door for Utah power forward Carlos Boozer (27 points, 20 rebounds) to barge through and make this a 2-1 series.
Part of Gasol's problem was his teammates poorly spacing the triangle offense - which went from perfect to pitiful alignment once Fisher picked up his second foul 2:53 into the game and was replaced by Farmar. Despite Utah's determination to start fast, the Lakers led, 11-3, at the time - and then the Jazz went on a 15-3 run that flashed back to last season's Lakers playoffs.
A year ago, Farmar was promoted to start over a crumbling Smush Parker, and disarray ensued in Phoenix's 4-1 first-round series victory. Sasha Vujacic averaged 2.8 points in that series.
Vujacic had provided 15- and 12-point lifts in the first games of this series - then went scoreless Friday night. In the plus-minus gauge of team points accrued for each player on the court, Gasol (minus-13), Farmar (minus-13) and Vujacic (minus-10) wound up the only Lakers to be worse than minus-3.
"Jordan wasn't quite ready to go in there and do the job he needed to do," Jackson said.
Boozer was quite ready, flexing his muscles against Gasol, Lamar Odom and Ronny Turiaf and breaking out of his slump like the Incredible Hulk shedding clothes.
"I just tried to stop thinking so much out there," Boozer said.
After the Lakers made some key defensive adjustments, they cut Utah's lead to 95-92 with 3:22 left.
But Boozer scored the game's next six points.
The Lakers pushed again, and it was 103-99 before Luke Walton fumbled the ball away as he looked for Fisher ("a big mess-up," Walton said). Walton earned an on-court tongue-lashing from a frustrated Kobe Bryant, who couldn't deliver the tide-turning plays in the final minutes either.
4SoCalFan 
