Game 5 preview with updated matchups

This is the big one tonight fellas and don't believe anyone in LA that says they are not nervous about tonight's game. I will give them a certain level of confidence, but deep down they have to be worried. After all of the "Sweep" talk from Laker fans they have to be experiencing a little rectal puckering for the rest of this series. So let me say this with a certain confidence, if the Jazz can sneak out a win tonight this series is all but over in 6. Here are my keys to tonight's game for a Jazz victory.

1 - Exploit the back injury. I am not saying that we should go out and try to hurt Kobe, but we are idiots if we don't body him up hard when the have the ball and run him in circles when he is on D. I want to see Brewer just running and cutting with no real purpose except to get Kobe to keep changing direction and twisting that back.

2 - Get Fisher into foul trouble early again. This may be next to impossible in LA, but Derron needs to do what ever it takes to get Farmar into the game early.

3 -Don't slow down. This game needs to become a physical track meet. The Jazz need to push the ball up the court and then go with authority to the hole. I still don't think that the Lakers interior defense is an better than average when the other team is attacking. If you slow it down and play the Charles Barkley 10 dribbles and then a shot offense they can be effective so keep the pressure on.

4 - Last, but not least, keep the Lakers to 35 or fewer free throws. Try playing some D with your feet instead of your hands and when you foul don't let them get a shot up.

I wanted to do a quick update on the match ups as well now that we are 4 games into this thing as a follow up to my series preview.

PG - Williams finally realized in the second half of game 2 that Fisher was his backup last year and took control of this one. The advantage for the Jazz is growing as the series progresses.
SG - Kobe owns this match-up regardless of who is guarding him.
SF - Kirilenko is pretty much destroying Radmanovic here so I would give him a pretty big edge
PF - Boozer vs. Odom, before the series I said that Boozer would own this match-up against any of the Laker bigs, but Phil is deploying double and triple teams on Booz limiting his scoring, but Booz is still hitting the boards and playing decent D. I would call this match-up even right now.
C - Before the Series I said that Gasol had a slight advantage over Okur, but now, I think Okur has the slight advantage. He is rebounding better, more consistent with his scoring and not as turnover prone. Overall Okur has been a positive factor for the Jazz in 3 of the 4 games and Gasol has been positive for the Lakers in only 2.
Bench - Price has been waaaaayyyyy better than Farmar even with very limited minutes. Vujacic and Kover have played to a dead tie in my opinion. Harpring and Walton have been very close in their production as well as have Millsap and Turriaf. Add it all up and the Jazz have a slight advantage on the bench because Farmar is scared.

So as I see it the Jazz have a slight advantage in the matchups, but the games are so close because Kobe is that much better for the Lakers. D-Will is on his way to having that type of advantage for the Jazz, but not quite Kobe leve yet which brings us to back to the back. If Kobe can not be 85% for the Lakers they are in trouble. As for a prediction - The homer in me says Jazz by 12 tonight, the realistic side in me says this game is 50/50 so lets split in the middle and say Jazz by 6, 105-99.