Fun in the Utah sun; booing Fisher; 48 minutes is all Jazz are asking for; and, AK shows up early!
Many Utahns enjoy an annual trip or two to California for some fun in the sun. According to this post in the L.A. Times’ Lakers Blog, it turns out, some Californians also apparently enjoy coming to Utah for some fun, too.
The Lakers sound downright giddy to play in the “hostile environment” – Lamar Odom’s words, not mine – of the EnergySolutions Arena.
“I expect it to be fun. For us,” Odom said Wednesday. “Playing in a hostile environment is going to remind me of home. I’m from Queens, so I’d play tournaments in Brooklyn and all over, and there’s gonna be talking in your face. But that’s what we live for.”
Did I read that wrong or did Odom really just compare Utah to New York? Wow, I always thought the ESA kind of felt like Madison Square Garden and Whatever The Field the Salt Lake Gulls/Buzz/Stingers/Bees play in now felt like Yankee Stadium, but I thought that was just me.
Odom went on to say it’s not exactly Monopoly – I’ll assume he didn’t intend to say Mormonopoly – type of fun competition, but it’s still fun.
“It’s a different kind of competition, you know? Somebody telling you that they hate your guts, and then you can make a spin move and make them go “Ahhhhhh!” in the same breath? You know? That’s the rush that you get from playing on the road.”
Remember, that Jazz fans, when you go “Ahhhhhh!” Thursday night, please be sure to get in all six Hs and only one breath, of course.
His Heirness apparently feels the same way.
“It’s a challenge, being in a tough atmosphere where everybody is pulling against you. It’s relaxing. It’s fun,” the blog quoted Kobe Bryant as saying. “The more they boo me, the more they heckle me, the more they relax me and the more I play better. You would think they’d know that by now.”
Great. Now Jazz fans are going to have make a list to take to the game. Let’s see, things to remember: Six Hs, one breath and some peace and quiet for Kobe.
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Derek Fisher has apparently come to grips that his chilly reception in Utah after being released from the Jazz has evolved from “more of a ‘personal’ boo to a ‘you’re on the Lakers’ boo.”
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, Fish, but that’s mostly what it always was.
The Times’ Lakers Blog rehashed his side of the story today, making Utah fans who “have a well earned reputation for being incredibly abusive” – their words, not mine – look like a bunch of local yocals in the process, of course.
The bloggers irresponsibly painted the EnergySolutions crowd with a venomous brush by reminding Lakers’ fans how Jazz fans covered one eye and allegedly chanted “Cancer!” to taunt Fisher about his daughter. Whether their intent or not, that, of course, leads all Jazz fans to be guilty by association.
What Fisher either chooses to ignore or simply fails to admit to the L.A. media is that the overwhelming vast majority of Utah fans didn’t – nor would they ever – pull a classless stunt like that.
What Fisher also glosses over is why Jazz fans really booed him. Was it because he asked and received a release from his Jazz contract from then-owner Larry H. Miller? Not necessarily.
Was it because fans felt like he betrayed Miller and the Jazz because he ended up back in a despised Lakers uniform with no time to spare after he made it sound like the best place for medical care for his daughter’s unique needs was in New York? Bingo!
Fisher made it personal with Jazz fans by rejoining the Lakers and putting on the Purple and Gold again. Simple as that. A very small minority allegedly acted classlessly, but the vast majority simply booed him for that reason. Perhaps there were other reasons, too. Heck, some even cheered his departure because his shooting was/is, let’s just say, much better as a Laker.
It’s just made for a better “Utahns are a bunch of classless hicks” story for L.A. types to portray it otherwise.
By the way, Fisher told the blog that his daugher, Tatum, is “doing great” – something that will, no doubt, come as good news to decent people who happen to be Jazz fans.
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If the Jazz keep progressing like they have in this series, it could bode well for Utah making a series out of this after all.
“Game 1 I thought we played two good quarters. Last night, I thought we played three,” Jazz swingman Kyle Korver said. “But we have to play four to beat them, especially there. But now we’re home. We obviously play better here.”
That – playing an entire game – was somewhat of a theme for Jazz players at practice Wednesday morning.
“They played great and they won. We played good and we lost … ” Carlos Boozer said. “For us, we look forward to trying to put together a 48-minute game.”
And then, of course, hope it doesn’t go into OT if their 48 minutes are up. But seriously…
“We’ve got to put together a whole game against them to win the game,” Boozer added.
Added Deron Williams: “We need four good quarters. Forty-eight minutes of basketball. Until we put together a full 48 minutes of basketball, you know, we’re not going to win.”
Unless fans are super, duper quiet and make a silent-but-non-relaxing environment from Kobe, of course.
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Remember all the fuss that was made by some over Andrei Kirilenko being the first player to exit the locker room every day? For the record, he and Kosta Koufos were the first players to shoot around prior to the Jazz’s practice this morning. They were at the training facility when I arrived at 10:30 a.m. That, by the way, is a half-hour before the practice starts, 15 minutes before players are supposed to make themselves available to the media and about 7-1/2 hours after the Jazz plane pulled into the SLC Int’l Airport.
I’m still trying to figure out why some were giving AK a hard time for getting out of a stinky locker room that’s loaded with odors from sweaty basketball players and even sweatier sports media members anyway.