Game Countdown – 12/9/09: Jazz @ Lakers

VS.

Utah Jazz (12-8) @ Los Angeles Lakers (16-3)

Game Info: 7:30 PM PT TV-Fox Sports West  Radio-710 AM, 1330 AM

THREE Questions:

• Is the fact that the Lakers are trying to win their 10th game in a row this season and 10th in a row against the Jazz a good omen or bad omen?  Any numerologists out there want to help a brother out?
• Who is Ron Aretst going to guard?  The Jazz don’t really have any talented swingmen on the roster, so how will Phil leverage Ron’s defensive abilities?  Should they go big and have Artest guard Williams or go small and see if Ron can slow down Boozer?  Or does he basically get the night off and focus on offense for a change?  And, yes, this still counts as one question.
• Can anything get Lamar Odom going again on offense or will he score in single digits for the eighth straight game?

TWO Predictions:

• Ronnie Brewer picks up where he left off in the post-season and does a quietly good job of the keeping Kobe under control, limiting him to under 20 points.
• No tacos tonight, in fact, I suspect this game will actually be rather close even though the Jazz are short-handed.  I am really feeling the C-word (that being complacency, not the other ones you pervert) starting to creep in on the Lakers lately.

ONE Match-up to Watch:

• Deron Williams vs. the Laker point guards.  By all rights, D-Will should eviscerate the Laker point guards, but for the most part, Fisher, Farmar and especially Brown all did a fine job of bottling up Williams when these two met in the playoffs last season.  Can the Lakers recreate that success or will Williams get his revenge?

ZERO Tolerance for… the armed robbers who hit a house in Kobe’s gated community that caused Bryant to miss the pre-game shootaround.  If those jerkwads cause the Mamba to be late for the game by even a second, then I say give them the chair.

Leave your own questions, answers, predictions or wishes as a comment or just hang out with us during the game or hit us up on Twitter @LakersOfFire.

Tags: Carlos Boozer, Derek Fisher, Deron Williams, Game Countdown, Jordan Farmar, Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, Ron Artest, Ronnie Brewer, Shannon Brown, Utah Jazz