Utah did everything right in Game Three, yet they still fell to the Los Angeles Lakers in front of a raucous home crowd.
The Jazz now face a historically insurmountable 0-3 deficit and are all but done for the 2009-10 NBA season.
On a night where the Utah bench provided a spark courtesy of Kyle Korver's 23 points (9-10 field goals), won the rebounding battle, and shot 45.5% from three point range, the veteran Lakers still found a way to escape with a gut-wrenching victory which saw 22 lead changes and eight ties.
In the end, it seemed that everything Utah could do, Los Angeles could do better.
Despite a colossal mistake by Ron Artest on an inbound pass with six seconds remaining (and a missed call by Joey Crawford), the Jazz were unable to pull out a win as Deron Williams' deep jumper rimmed out followed by Wesley Matthews' tip in being half an inch from falling in.
In NBA basketball, the better team almost always wins a seven-game series and similarly, in a game where both teams play at a high level, the better team usually gets the breaks that make the difference between winning and losing.
Did the Lakers play flawlessly? Certainly not.
Did they play good enough to beat the Jazz, who had their best game of the series in a must-win situation? Good enough by a point, and in the end, that's the difference between 3-0 and 2-1.
Kobe Bryant continued his string of outstanding performances, eclipsing the 30-point mark for the fourth straight game while amassing seven assists and four rebounds.
The Lakers overcame Andrew Bynum's unproductive 20 minutes (zero points, four rebounds) with a combination of Pau Gasol and Ron Artest, both hitting critical shots and grabbing important rebounds ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
