"It came across fairly fuzzy, more wavy and shaky than warm and cuddly. Still — from his seat in the small Staples Center interview room in the late hours of Tuesday night after the Los Angeles Lakers had beaten the Jazz for the second time in as many outings this week in the second-round NBA playoff series — Carlos Boozer tried as hard as he could to exude confidence. "We get a chance to go home," Boozer said, "and if we can win the first game, we have a chance to win the second game and tie it up and come back here. "That's our main focus — is to try to get Game 3 in Salt Lake City, and go from there." If the Jazz indeed are flustered — be it L.A.'s star power in general, or its obvious size advantage in particular — Lakers leader Kobe Bryant doesn't necessarily see it. "I don't even know if it's frustration," Bryant, sitting a while later in the same seat Boozer occupied, said Tuesday night. "I think it's just, um, them thinking through things of how they want to try solve the issue or get around the problem," he added. "You know, that's what I see out there, so it's important for us to be mindful of it." But across the country, the view from a distance — at least in Charles Barkley's world — is clear as can be. And when that's all put into the focus for the Jazz, who are in the midst of a best-of-seven series with the defending NBA champion Lakers, it doesn't exactly present a pretty picture." http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700030087/Jazz-struggling-to-handle-LAs-bigs.html
