via www.nba.com

Even the official Utah Jazz site doesn't have the teams mentioned for the Rocky Mountain Revue, but if you follow The Fan Sports pre-sale link, you can find the following teams,

• Dallas Mavericks
• Atlanta Hawks
• San Antonio Spurs
• New Jersey Nets
• Golden State Warriors
• FIBA National Team
• D-League All-Stars

So we should be seeing such players as Brook Lopez, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Goran Dragic, and Anthony Randolph in addition to our players.  The Hawks didn't have any 2008 picks and the Mavs had just the one.  I was hoping to have Chicago here again to see Rose, but that's not happening.  I guess the teams could change between now and then, but this is pretty much it.

We're down one NBA team from last year, but they've added the FIBA team and Dl-League All-stars.  So it's not the death of the RMR yet.  But there aren't any big name players this year.  Lopez is probablyt the biggest one.  But we all go to see the Jazz team, right?

Should be a great Revue.  For the Jazz we'll see Koufos, Fesenko, Almond, and maybe CJ Miles.  He got QOd again.  The brass was a little disappointed that he didn't play last year and so he may play just to please them.  He didn't want to play because of the chance of injury.  He and his agent also stated that there was a lot of interest from other teams, but I don't recall who those other teams were.  If CJ wants to earn some brownie points with Sloan, he'll play.  I wish the Jazz would just give him a guaranteed contract and be done with it.  He's an obvious upgrade over Hapring, but Matt still has two long years on his deal.

And there will be outrage if I don't see Fess and Kosta on the floor at the same time.

More Kosta

Surprisingly, Kosta isn't the only Kosta in the league.  Kosta Perovic  is another 7-footer and hails from Croatia.  Seems like if you want your kid to be 7 feet, you name him Kosta.  And should his nickname be the Big K?

via upload.wikimedia.org

I like what I've read and heard about Kousos.  He sounds like a gym rat that just wants to play ball.  He doesn't have any distractions and will be a hard worker (Sloan's only requirement). 

And I might have been a little hard on Ante Tomic in my draft recap.  Part of it was that it was late, I was tired, and I was just trying to finish up.  I still don't think we'll see him with the Jazz, but there's definitely potential there.  He just doesn't seem like he'll ever be able to put on the weight that's necessary to play in the NBA.  Too bad we probably won't be the first team to have the triple-towers.  Maybe we'd see it in the Revue, but not likely.

Other news

Millsap had his team option picked up.  Shocker.  I know the Jazz would prefer to keep him on the cheap, and I see the advantages of the rookie scale, but it seems like there should be some option for the rookies to get some type of performance pay or bonus.  You don't want to have to pay players based on hype in case they don't pan out, but having guys like Millsap and Williams playing for relative peanuts doesn't seem right.  I'm sure something like that would open up all kinds of loopholes though.  If they're good enough to stick around for a few years, then that second contract should make up for it.

Speaking of Williams, he and Boozer are in Vegas training for the Olympics.  It would be great to be there right now.  You have the Olympic practices going on along with the Vegas summer league.  I don't know where you could get any more basketball right now.

And of course tomorrow is the first official day Williams could agree to a new deal.  The length of the new deal is what seems to be the discussion right now.  It could range from 3-5 years with a player option.  Of course we'd all love to see Deron here for 5 years +.  I'm guessing the length of the contract depends on how Deron sees the stability of the team.  We know he loves the SLC.   The team will have to assure him that they'll be doing what's necessary to keep and bring in players.  It's kind of a catch-22 because having Deron here will help the Jazz in what has traditionally been free agent hell.  But I'm sure Deron has to be convinced that the team can bring in FAs.

I'm predicting a 4-year deal with a player option for the fifth.  He could set the tone for Chris Paul's similar deal.

Crazy month coming ahead.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.  The Jazz have one poor quarter.  Boozer does jack on either end.  The Jazz get down double digits.  The backups lead a comeback in the final quarter, only to fall short.

Second verse, same as the first.

Utah is known for their strict liquor laws. It's all watered down. But maybe the legislators need to call a special session to up the alcohol content, because our Booze is weak. See what I did there?

One of our team captains continued his two-month long crapfest. He's the reason we got in the hole early. He picked up two amazingly stupid fouls in the first and was in trouble the whole game. He ended up with only 10 points and 5 boards in just 24 minutes. And it took him 3-11 to score that. Here's a tip. If your guy goes by you or is in front of you for a rebound, get your forearm out of his back. Maybe the league is calling those more now, but you have to adjust to that. I'm still not ready to give up on Boozer, but if this is one of those situations where he comes out after the series and says he's been hurt or some other excuse, I'll be ticked.

And sorry Booze, the AND-1 mantle was passed to Millsap for now. Millsap had three or four such opportunities as he came in to pick up the slack. He shot 7-13 from the field and grabbed 10 boards and finished with 17 points. He did have a blown layup in the fourth that would have cut the lead to 4, but without Paul, the Jazz aren't anywhere near that close.

Williams didn't play well in the first half. And then he realized, "Man, I'm going to have to carry this team again." Unfortunately, his 22 points in the second half weren't enough to bring the Jazz back. He finally started realizing that he could take Fisher any time he wanted to. The highlight of the game came after Boozer got a quick rebound and got it to Williams for the break. Deron was going full speed and didn't stop until he took off from the bottom of the free-throw arc and slammed down a ferocious dunk. Watch the video in the FanShots (coming soon).

You'll look at the box score and think that Kobe lit up Brewer. But Ronnie played excellent defense on #24 all night. The now reigning MVP made tough shot after tough shot. He had a couple of shots that were at ridiculous angles and he was able to kiss them off the glass.

We're still getting karmic payback from Fisher. He would squelch any Jazz run with a huge three-point shot. He was 4-5 from downtown and finished with 22 points. If you're at the game Friday, please, please give him applause. We need to reverse something.

As far as the overall play of the Jazz, they took 101 shots compared to LA's 68. How is that even possible? How can you take 23 more shots and still lose? Well, there's two ways. One is to shoot only 44%. The other is to allow the Lakers to shoot 57%. And the Jazz didn't even play that poorly on D. The Lakers just shot lights out.

But the biggest reason has to be the free-throw discrepancy. LA attempted 43 FTs compared to Utah's 16. For those without calculators, I'll do the math. That's 27 more attempts. And it wasn't even so much the number of attempts as it was the timing of the fouls. Just when the Jazz were getting going, out would come the whistles against the Jazz in successive LA possessions. A classic example of this was when Fisher was running with Memo on a fast break. Memo ducked under the basket and away from Fisher and still got the foul. And when the Lakers were struggling, the refs would bail them out. And I don't know how much contact Deron has to get for a foul to be called. He gets hammered on almost every drive. Doesn't the free throw distance have to be some sort of statistical anomaly?

But despite all that, the Jazz still had a chance to win. It's going to take four good quarters to beat these guys. The Jazz outscored the Lakers by 5 in the final three quarters. The 15 point first quarter deficit was too much, especially on the road.

At the risk of sounding like a first-round Houston fan, the Jazz can still win the next two at home and make this a series again. When you think in terms of winning 4 out of 5, that sounds pretty impossible. But if you think in terms of taking care of business at home, and finding a way to get one on the road, it's not as imposing. But a game 7 in LA, against the NBA's MVP, against a marquee franchise doesn't sound appealing.

Other notes,

• On Deron's dunk, we didn't see a replay until after the game. had that been Kobe, we would have seen it going into and coming back from every commercial break.

• Matt Hapring should never set foot on an NBA court again. I'm with Biased now on this. You have to play CJ. There is no way he could be any worse.

• In both comebacks, there hasn't been that little extra to get us over the hump to tie the game late.

• Andrei, Korver, and Memo played well tonight. Usually when get 40 points from those three, you win the game.