Boozer unable to hold his ground against Lakers

by Mike Kahn

Updated: May 9, 2008, 6:53 PM EST 411 comments

Carlos Boozer's production level has fallen off and he's also experienced foul trouble in the opening pair of losses to the Lakers. (Stephen Dunn / Getty Images)

One look at his stats during the two Jazz losses to the Los Angeles Lakers and there's no question why people are curious of his whereabouts. It's more than just the 12.5 points a game and 9.5 rebounds — not horrible numbers. It's not even the 5.0 fouls a game he's averaging.

It's his body language. The look on his face that packages confusion, dejection and intimidation all rolled into one. Don't forget — the rough, tough Jazz of fabled coach Jerry Sloan were supposed to be a threat to the Lakers because they're the physical intimidators, not the intimidatees.

That's not to say everybody falls into that category. Superb point guard Deron Williams has played his typical game, and Boozer's backup at power forward, Paul Millsap, has actually been the only one standing up to the Lakers inside. And the Lakers are playing at an extremely high level; their offensive chemistry at the moment supersedes toughness and defense.

But Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom are hardly the intimidating types. They are extraordinarily skilled big men and have meshed in an unusually short time to offset all the attention that Kobe Bryant gets from defenses. Nonetheless, they are finesse big men, capable of being taken out of their games by physical players and it's been that way for most of their careers.

The problem is the 6-9, 265-pound Boozer is an All-Star and the presumptive second coming of Karl Malone on the edge of the Great Salt Lake. His role was to at least match their productivity up front. Of course, the Mailman comparison isn't fair, and the same goes when it comes to the Williams/John Stockton assessment. Williams and Stockton are completely different players in all ways except they play point guard at an extremely high level. Malone and Boozer have exceeded expectations in their athletic careers, play the same position, and are comparable in size, if not build (although Malone has arguably the best pair of hands ever at power forward).

But Boozer hasn't come close to matching what the Lakers' front-court guys are bringing to the table, and that's why it doesn't make sense.

He's the overachiever who came from Alaska to play for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke. It was never a thing of beauty to watch him play and he was heavy, so he didn't get drafted until the second round of the 2002 draft by Cleveland. He showed up at Cavs training camp 20 pounds lighter, stronger and tenacious on the glass. His shooting stroke remains unorthodox with a very slow release, but with a surprisingly soft touch up to 18-19 feet and around the basket. And when the Cavs won the lottery and the rights to LeBron James the next season, they were brilliant together — a duo to build around for the future.

As the story goes, Boozer conned the Cavs into not giving him a qualifying offer after his second year so they could pay him more than a second-round draft choice would get. They presumably had a handshake deal of a solid $40 million-plus contract. But the Jazz jumped at the chance to wildly overpay with a $68 million offer. The Cavs were angry, stunned, embarrassed . . . and didn't want to spend the money. They let him go.

And Jazz fans wondered for awhile if they got a raw deal. He played in just 84 games the first two seasons in Utah, hampered by foot and leg injuries, and Sloan was upset with his lack of defensive intensity when he did play. Ironically, the buzz was constant that the Lakers were trying to get him. Then he got healthy last season. He exploded in the 2006-07 season with Williams as his running mate — thus the Stockton-Malone conversations. They even made it to the conference finals in 2007 before bowing out to the Spurs, and Boozer averaged 23.5 points and 12.2 rebounds in 17 playoff games.

That's why it is so difficult to figure out what this is all about. It would be easy to say he'll bounce back strong because they're playing the next two games at home, where they were 37-4 during the season as opposed to 17-34 on the road. But Boozer had virtually identical statistics at home and on the road during the regular season. Then again, he was sub-par against the Rockets despite the six-game win in the first round — averaging just 16.0 points and shooting poorly (.429) from the field, although he did get 11.7 rebounds per game.

The problem is he's dropped off to 12.5, .375 and 9.5 against the Lakers. The expectations in the Friday/Sunday games with the Lakers are huge, and rightfully so. Despite the Lakers' 6-0 run in the playoffs, Utah has the kind of physical tools to upset that ebb and flow. Boozer has the body and game to disrupt Odom and Gasol, the latter in particular.

He just hasn't figured out how to do that without spending an inordinate amount of time on the bench in foul trouble and remaining out of sync when he is on the floor. Well, he's an All-Star and being paid like an All-Star, so he's supposed to figure it out. Sure, people criticized Malone — the second-leading scorer in NBA history — for often fading in playoff games. Well, he did average 24.7 points and 10.7 rebounds in 193 postseason games, so he could haven't been that bad.

In fact, those are exactly the kind of numbers the Jazz would love from Boozer for the rest of these playoffs — starting now.