I personally love the way Carlos Boozer has turned it on of late. His numbers are getting closer and closer to the all important 20-10 guy that he is (important if you love Zach Randolph only, I could write an entire book on how brutal he is). Boozer has been as good as any power forward in basketball and with the ability of Deron Williams to create shots for all of his teammates, that is a nasty combo. Not yet Stockton to Malone but I bet coach Jerry Sloan is loving his two young studs. Individually they aren’t to the elite status of those two but this could be the year they actually win something.

The Jazz have all the makings for a deep playoff run. The only real knock is that they don’t have a legit center and thereforreally don’t scare many teams on the defensive side of the ball. They always say defense wins championships but it turns out that scoring more than the other team also really helps. The lack of the center is because of Okur. He is one of the softest big men in the game and also probably the best shooting 7 footer (not named Nowitzki). A possible match up with the Lakers is good for Utah because Gasol is a fellow softy and he is the center with Bynum out with injuries. After Boozer, Okur, and Williams, they run a handful of freaky athletic guys who on any night can get you 20 points. Those guys would be Kirilenko, Miles, Price, and Millsap. They bring the energy, the hustle, the defense, and they bring the noise. If Korver can knock down a few wide open 3′s this team is really good. Good luck going into Utah and coming out with a W.

Obviously my predictions have been terribly wrong of late so I’m not going to laying any $$$ on this unlikey run but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they pulled it off.

Just a little random side note here:Andre Kirilenko and his wife have an agreement that one time each year they have a “free pass” to spend a night with another man or woman. Seeing as how I’m about to get married I’m not quite sure how that works but it doesn’t seem to be effecting his play on the court.

I’m gonna start by talking about the game before against the Celtics because I didn’t have time to write something about that game and honestly it won’t take more than a few sentences. This game was an absolute joke to watch. The Celtics come into the Rose Garden old and beat up and just have played a long and tough game against the Lakers ,and just ran rough shot over the young Blazers. Here’s a fun stat from the game. The Blazers out shot the Celtics from the free throw line 30-12. How do you outscore your opponent by 18 from the charity stripe and still lose by 20. Simply mind bottling (Quoted from Scar). I’ll finish the summary of this game with one stat to look at. Andre Miller in his 52 point night made 22 field goals, the Blazers against the Celtics made 22 field goals. You crunch the numbers and tell me how many W’s you’ll get with that shooting.

Truth be told I really don’t want to write anything about the Jazz game last night, but I gotta earn my paycheck so I’ll write something. Man the Blazers played great for 3 1/2 quarters (how many times have you heard me say that this year), then played some of the worst basketball I’ve seen. Ever. For any level. How do you lose up 25 half way through the 3rd quarter. Can’t blame it on Roy not being there. Can’t blame it on the Jazz shooting over 60% again (shot 40%). So what do you blame this loss on? This loss goes on the heart and pride of the players. That’s what this team is lacking to ever make that jump up to the top tier teams. A couple players when in this situation will not let it happen. Roy is about the only player that has that ability, but he’s not enough to cover for everyone else. This team is about to enter the danger zone (cue Top Gun music) where they could drop 7 of the next 10 because of this loss, and the only way to survive this is someone has to step up with Roy and refuse to lose games. Not sure who that’s gonna be but it’s gotta be someone.

I’m done rambling so here’s a list of key things from the game.

Mehmet Okur didn’t play and he usually destroys the Blaze, and Kirilenko only played 9 min before getting hurt.

Carlos Boozer had a career high 23 rebounds to go with 22 points

Marcus Camby did what he was paid to come in and do with 18 rebounds and 4 blocks. To bad he didn’t bring his offense up from LA yet.

Roy is looking better with every game back and you could tell he’s trusting his hamstring more now.

Andre Miller still has the ugliest shot in basketball.

Blazers lost the final 19 min 44-19 and shot 4-27 in the 4th and OT.

And I died a little inside watching that whole game. The one time my DVR doesn’t cut my recording off early is this game. Go figure.

There is only 1 thing that can cheer me up now. Steve Garvey and Michael Floorwax

All rights reserved to ESPN.

P.S. If the Blazers do end up making the playoffs they better pray to god that they don’t meet the Jazz or you may see my bank account being emptied out  right before the series starts.

Now if this doesn’t sum up the game I don’t know what would