Some players avoid saying this particular word — kind of like how they'd shy away from dropping a four-letter bomb in front of their mom or preacher.

But Carlos Boozer used the dreaded noun to describe what he's going through in these playoffs. Even at the risk of having to add a quarter to the "Naughty Word Jar," Boozer admitted Thursday that he is indeed experiencing a mind-boggling (close your ears!) "slump."

He's bothered by it, badly wants to work out of it, says his team is suffering and struggling in part because of it, and knows it couldn't have come at a worse time.

"I am in a shooting slump," he said. "I am frustrated."

The Jazz's slumping power forward couldn't even go to sleep after Wednesday night's 120-110 Game 2 loss — which put Utah in an 0-2 hole against the Los Angeles Lakers in this Western Conference semifinal series — until about 6 a.m. Thursday. Even then, it was a short snooze. He had to be at a shootaround and film session only a few hours later to get ready for tonight's Game 3 (7 p.m. tipoff) at EnergySolutions Arena.

After flying back to Utah from L.A. following the game, Boozer tossed, watched the game, turned, counted referees' whistles and fouls, tossed while thinking about missed jump shots and turned some more while worrying about letting his teammates down.

He's been playing his nightmare of late "back and forth in my head" to try to figure things out.

Against the Lakers, Boozer has hardly looked like the best power forward on the Jazz, let alone the clutch player who earned a spot on the All-NBA third team with his dominating inside presence and mid-range game.

Matched against the quick and lengthy likes of 6-10 Lamar Odom and 7-foot Pau Gasol, the 6-foot-9 Boozer has put up consecutive sub-par performances — and that was coming off a first-round series in which he didn't exactly light it up. Against the Lakers, Boozer has only averaged 12.5 points thanks to a miserable 37.5-percent shooting clip. In eight playoff games, he is scoring just 15.1 points on 41.7 percent shooting.

That production is way down from his regular-season contributions of 21.1 points per game on 54.7 percent field-goal accuracy.

For a player at Boozer's talent level, yep, that puts him in bona fide slump territory, especially when considering he had seven turnovers in Game 1 and zero points in the first half of Game 2.

"For me, I'm a 20-10 guy all night long, and not to be getting those numbers bothers me," he said Thursday morning at the Zions Bank Basketball Center.

Even more bothersome than not getting his usual double-double — he's only grabbing 9.5 rebounds a game against L.A. as well — is the fact his team has fallen twice to the Lakers while his shots have fallen anywhere between Santa Monica Boulevard and Manhattan Beach but not often in the basket.