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After all these years, playoffs after playoffs with the Jazz and Lakers battling it out, once again the gold and purple will be battling the purple and green…Err….White and light blue…Dark blue….Well…..Who the heck knows what color the Jazz will be wearing? I don’t. I hope the Jazz trainers do.

There’s also the question of which Jazz team shows up? The dominating team that won two games on the road against the Rockets, the team that lost horribly and looked shabby in game five, or the team that blistered the best defensive team in the NBA with a 113 point pasting in a decisive game six?

Oh, it doesn’t matter, most pundits would argue. The Lakers are invincible with the incredibly fortunate addition of Pau Gasol to the mix, just when the Lakers season looked to be in serious trouble with the injury to Andrew Bynum. Go figure. Kobe throws the entire front office and his team-mates under the bus, the bus runs over them a few times, backs up and repeats the Hollywood Histronics a few more times. Then, the Memphis Grizzlies, of all teams, gives what seems to be the final and perfect addition to a team seemingly on the verge of another protracted fishing-trip summer.

Bingo.

Suddenly the Lakers click, Boston starts looking over their shoulders at the old rival reborn from the ashes, and phoenix is not a city, it’s a mythical beast rising next to the calm Pacific waters of the West. Now the Lakers are favored to meet the Celtics in the finals. It’s a dream come true for David Stern, and a nightmare for the rest of the league.

Not so fast.

Suddenly the Celtics are showing a few warts against one of the weakest team to qualify for the playoffs in years. And while the Lakers shut out the Nuggetts in four disasters of the first magnitude, that ‘aint saying much. The Nuggetts are wannabe Knicks with a skitch more talent and a coach that if he had any hair left, he would have pulled it out a long time ago.

Meanwhile, back in Jazzland, the Jazz were having a lot more difficulty advancing past a Houston Rocket team that might be one of the more overachieving teams in NBA History. The plain fact is that a team that can run off 22 straight in the NBA is not a patsy, despite the loss of Mother China’s most favored son. There are several teams playing right now that are very thankful they didn’t have to play the Houston Rockets. The Jazz are not one of them. They’ve got Houston’s number, and TMac’s as well, if there are any ladies who prefer their men with wandering eyes.

So what will happen? Will the Jazz run into a juggernaut, wonder what hit them, and make summer vacation plans before the final game in the series once again?

Who knows? I don’t, I don’t have the faintest idea. That’s great, you say. Here I wanted to hear who and how many it would take for one of these teams to advance to meet the Hornets or Spurs in the next round, which is not a cake walk in itself, far from it. If someone tells you he knows for sure, then he’s a liar.

Here’s the truth. It’s the playoffs. Throw out the season records against each other, throw out the minor differences in wins and losses, but don’t throw out the baby with the water. It’s a new ball game, these two teams have never faced each other with the starting fives intact, and it’s survival of the fittest. Strange things have a way of happening in the NBA playoffs. Just ask the Dallas Mavericks last year, or the Boston Celtics this year. If you had bet money in Vegas on the Celtics-Hawks series going seven games, you should be residing in Vegas and making a lot of bucks picking winners out of a hat.

The bottom line is this……There are six teams left in the playoffs who stand a reasonable chance of being the King of the Roost…...Lakers, Jazz, Spurs, Hornets, Pistons and Celtics.

It just depends on who gets hot, who stays injury free, who wants it more.

The Lakers and the Jazz are the deepest, most talented teams in the League. That doesn’t guarantee a title, for the Celtics and the Spurs have three supreme players each who can carry a team regardless of the chaff left on their rosters.

As for the Lakers and the Jazz, well…..That’s a good question. The Lakers have one of the best players in the League in Kobe Bryant, if not the best. The Jazz have a slightly deeper roster with five starters who might be just a little better overall than the Lakers, thanks to the wide disparity between Deron Williams and Derek Fisher. Kobe can carry a team on his shoulders, destroy opponents. He can also try to do too much on his own, get his team out of snyc, and make it vulnerable to a team playing together.

I think it’s going to be a dogfight, two teams with jaws gripping each other’s throats, staring each other in the eyes and waiting for the light to dim. Homecourt means nothing, heart means everything, and the heart is where I think the Jazz have an advantage. I think when push comes to shove, Kobe will try and do it by himself. The Jazz will look to each other, feed off each other, and try to win as a team. Kobe can win a game, or a series, when he’s right. He can also lose games by himself, for he views his game as the beginning and the end, for he is Mr. Basketball, and everyone else is dirt.

When Kobe plays team basketball, the Lakers will be hard to beat. When the Jazz put pressure on the Lakers, that’s when Kobe will try to win it by himself, and that is precisely when the Lakers are vulnerable. Derek Fisher will try to keep the Lakers playing team basketball, but Kobe is a wild card, the ultimate wild card.

There were many years when the Jazz played the Lakers, and while my heart wanted the Jazz to win, I knew it probably wouldn’t happen. This isn’t one of those years. The Jazz not only have a chance to win, I think they will win the series, despite my disclaimer at the start of this piece. Just a hunch.

I’m picking the Jazz to win in six games.