Must win? Uh, not really

The Los Angeles Lakers are up 2-1 on Utah in a first-round, best-of-seven playoff series. Carlos Boozer this morning called tonight’s Game 4 “must-win” for the Jazz.
Stay awake long enough in math class – no easy task, granted, for some – and buy a good calculator, and even the numerically challenged among us can determine it’s really not.
Word problem: If one team us up 2-1, and the series is best of seven, and both teams leave the train station at the same time, is it really must win for the one that’s down a game?
Answer: Uh, no.
Teammates – at least this time – have Boozer’s back.
“Yeah, definitely. It is a must-win,” point guard Deron Williams said. “Our mindset was coming back home and getting these two, and then going back out there with a chance to steal one. And that’s what we’ve got to do.”
“If we get this 2-2, this series is up for grabs again,” added veteran forward Matt Harpring, who agreed with the must-win mentality as well. “If we go down 3-1, it’s going to be awful tough.”
Harpring did go to Georgia Tech, so it’s hard to argue with his logic.
Still, it doesn’t take a rambling wreck of an engineer to crunch the numbers: Lakers up 2-1, best of seven, four games left, three more victories for Utah needed to advance; most definitely not, technically speaking, must-win.
Unless, that is, you’re doing Jazz math.
And then there’s this:
Coach Jerry Sloan said this morning that if the Jazz win tonight, they get to play the Lakers again; if not, they go home.
Newsflash: Even if the Jazz don’t win tonight, they play the Lakers again. And, either way, they don’t get to go home. After Game 4, they must go L.A.
No wonder these guys think it’s must win.

-30-