Sunday marked game one of the first round of the NBA Playoffs between the Lakers and the Jazz. The number eight seeded team, Utah, came to Los Angeles, the number one seeded team and, needless to say, the Lakers rolled over the Jazz and cruised to a 113-100 victory. While the Jazz play a mean game at home, they are just 15-26 on the road, and the Lakers have beat them 10 times in a row at Staples.

While the first play of the game wasn’t necessarily in favor of the Lakers (a steal by Williams off of a bad pass by Kobe), after that it was all Lakers all the time. As Kobe said, “They kept knocking on the door and we just never let them in.” Both Gasol and Ariza answered quickly to the bad pass, with a hook shot and three-pointer, respectively.

With seven minutes to go, Ariza was at it again with an amazing driving dunk. Pau had a slam dunk not but two minutes later, with an assist from Shannon Brown, who has been seeing a lot of time lately. Ariza lit it up with yet another dunk with an assist from Pau Gasol. Sasha came in for Ariza with two minutes to go, and dished it out to Brown for a three-point bucket. Before the end of the first, Gasol added his fourth defensive rebound, and Kobe made the technical free throw. This was just the beginning.

At the start of the second, Sasha got his one of two personal fouls, but a defensive rebound that would eventually lead to Odom’s very impressive dunk was soon to follow. After another personal foul, he was replaced by Kobe Bryant, who sat out the first half of the second quarter.

After a mixture of free throws and a couple jump shots, Kobe Bryant added twp more points to his stat sheet with an amazing turn around fade-away shot. Soon, he was on a roll. He made a layup, a free throw, and then two turn around fade-aways in a row. Just a minute later, Trevor Ariza had another beautiful dunk, and with 23 seconds to go, Luke Walton made a three to end the half with a whopping score of 62-40.

The first points of the third quarter didn’t come until 8:32 with one free throw made by Andrew Bynum. Ariza was once again lighting up the court, with layups and free throws everywhere. Right before he was replaced by Sasha with 1:19 to go, he had yet another driving dunk to the basket. Just like in the first quarter, as soon as Sasha came in, he dished it out to Shannon who made another three. Could The Machine be a good luck charm to Shannon Brown?

The first shot of the fourth quarter was a missed three-pointer by Sasha, but this time Shannon helped Sasha out and rebounded it and gave it to Bynum, who missed it. Enter Lamar Odom: clean-up crew. He rebounded the ball, number five for the night, and tipped it in, giving himself 11 points thus far. Soon after, Bynum had his fifth personal foul, and was replaced by Pau Gasol, who quickly made a hook shot, an impressive dunk, and added his eigth rebound of the night.

With 7:43 to go, Sasha was replaced by Kobe, and soon the starting five finished out the game. With five minutes to go, Kobe hit a fade-away to give the Lakers exactly 100 points. He also hit a slam dunk with about 1:30 left to go, and the last points of the game came from Trevor Ariza, who knocked down a three, given to him by Kobe, adding eight assists for the night. The final score was 113-100.

Sasha saw a moderate amount of playing time, and had a good defensive game. He may not have scored any points, but his one rebound, two assists, one steal and one blocked shot in just 11:48 of playing time wasn’t bad at all. He is really starting to prove that all aspects of his game, whether they are offensive or defensive, are really good all-around, and he is molding himself into a good role player.

Headband Watch: Wide Black