Thursday, May 17, 2007

   With no game for another three days at least, the Jazz came in for a brief workout at their practice facility and went home. Asked what the Jazz did at practice, Andrei Kirilenko answered, "Nothing really." I appreciated his honesty. They'll probably go harder Friday.

    Carlos Boozer waited four seasons to play in his first playoff game and offered some insight as to what that was like. He was selected to the All-Star Game this season for the first time but making the playoffs offered a greater validation.

    "If you're going to play basketball, you play to win. You don't play for anything else," Boozer said, adding, "If you have a taste of the playoffs, you feel better about yourself as a player."

    It's amazing that Boozer was a second-round draft pick in 2001, taken after Vincent Yarbrough, Robert Archibald, Roger Mason, Steve Logan, Frank Williams, Casey Jacobson, Curtis Borchardt and Marcus Haislip, among others.

    Here's the company Boozer now is keeping: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Baron Davis. That's the list of players with four 30-point games in these playoffs. No Vincent Yarbrough, apparently.

    It's no surprise but Boozer and Deron Williams are going to be the key players for the Jazz whether they play Phoenix or San Antonio in the conference finals. Williams will attempt to hold his own against one of two All-Star point guards in Steve Nash or Tony Parker.

    My guess is the Suns would have to abandon small-ball to match up with the Jazz thusly: Amare Stoudemire on Mehmt Okur, Kurt Thomas on Boozer, Shawn Marion on Kirilenko. Putting either Stoudemire or Marion on Boozer would leave them vulnerable to foul trouble.

    Boozer also has the size and strength to make life difficult for Tim Duncan. The Spurs have a ton of big men, though, that they could use on Boozer after Duncan, from Robert Horry to Francisco Elson to Fabricio Oberto to Matt Bonner.

    Having Boozer and Okur decreases the Spurs' ability to put their best lineup of Duncan, Parker, Manu Ginobili, Michael Finley and Bruce Bowen on the floor. They are all averaging 32 minutes against the Suns but they're probably too small a unit against the Jazz.

    Back to Boozer: Does he ever think about the tough times, when he was sitting at home and watching the playoffs on television? His first four seasons, Boozer played for teams that went a combined 119-209, an average record of 30-52.

    "It's one of those things where you're getting ready for vacation and you wish you were still playing," Boozer said. "I've been a winner my whole life and to have to watch it, it builds hunger inside you.

    "You can't wait to start working out so you can get ready for the next season, see if you can make it. When you're working out, when you feel like you're tired on your 20th rep, you want to do 25 reps. It's one of those things that keep you motivated."

    Boozer and his wife also are expecting twins this summer. Jazz guard Dee Brown joked the other night that they were both going to be 6-foot-8 and rebounding beasts.

    * * *

    Kirilenko offered this gem when asked if the Jazz were still motivated after exceeding all expectations in just reaching the conference finals: "We're always hungry. I never won a championship. I want to win. It's tough to do. Nobody said it's going to be cheese on a plate."

    Cheese on a plate? I think Kirilenko was trying to say that nobody was going to hand a championship to the Jazz on a silver platter. I think. Maybe.

    * * *

    Matt Harpring had an interesting take on whether the playoffs were more physical than in the past. It's hard to argue when ESPN replays Horry's hip check of Nash 10,000 times an hour. In Harpring's mind, though, the media coverage of incidents has led to that perception.

    "As soon as someone gets an elbow," Harpring said, "you go, 'Oooh, is he going to get ejected or is he going to be suspended for that?"'

    My take is that the NBA is going to have to address these issues in the off-season. It's so subjective that you can take a group of four writers who cover hundreds of games a year and none of them can conclusively say who's going to be suspended for what.

    That happened Monday with four of us at the Warriors' practice facility. Some of us thought Baron Davis was going to be suspended while others thought Jason Richardson was going to draw Stu Jackson's wrath.

    Both wound up with flagrant foul penalty 2s, which no average fan can understand. Even the definition "unnecessary and excessive" contact is vague. The NBA is saying in essence that Davis should have been ejected for a play in which the referees failed to even call a foul.

    Dallas owner Mark Cuban made a good suggestion of allowing referees to use replay in unsportsmanlike conduct situations. Quoting from Cuban's excellent blogmaverick.com, "It lets the punitive action for a bad act take place in the game it impacts."

    "It would also make fans feel that the officials took the appropriate action based on the best information available," Cuban wrote. "It can be incredibly frustrating to everyone at the game when a replay contradicts the best efforts of an official on a matter as serious as a flagrant foul."

    More from Cuban: "Although it wouldn't eliminate the need for the league to take action on players, it would probably reduce the number of times they would be asked to take action over a players' on-court behavior."

    Seems like an idea that couldn't hurt. Cuban wrote that he proposed this change privately but had it shot down. That's why he was making it public.

    --Ross Siler