Snyder: Jazz hit first, for entire game

HOUSTON — If there is anyone who can offer a candid assessment of the day's hot topic for Saturday's Game 1 of the Jazz-Rockets NBA playoff series — Utah's style of play — it's Kirk Snyder.

The 2004 Jazz first-round draft choice spent one season playing under coach Jerry Sloan in Utah and now is a Houston reserve guard.

"I wouldn't say it's dirty," Snyder said before the Rockets' 84-75 win over the Jazz. "I just think that, in a physical way, they're prepared a little bit different.

"What they try to teach you is 'hit first.' That's just an aggressive mentality they bring to the table. It's not dirty. You just want to be the first person to get the first hit in. That's what they teach, and sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it looks like it's the wrong thing."

And it's not all that different from the way many NBA teams play, Snyder suggested.

"It's just that immediately they play like that," he said. "You know, most teams have to get into it, and in the fourth quarter they try to pick it up. With (the Jazz) it's just full throttle — you know, smash on the gas ped and push it all the way through."

BEST FRIENDS: Jazz rookie Dee Brown vows not to let the series get between his friendship with Rocket guard and ex-University of Illinois teammate Luther Head.

"I want to beat him, he wants to beat me," Brown said. "We're buddies, but when we get on the court it's business."

Jazz point guard Deron Williams, who played with both at Illinois, said he'll talk with Head throughout the series, just as they did during the regular season.

Ditto for Brown.

"That's my guy," Brown said. "Off the court, we're gonna hang out. But on the court he knows I'm gonna get after him.... He ain't on my team."

Head told the Houston Chronicle that Brown and his mother have "been talking to me since last season, that they'll kill us. She talks more than Dee.... She's a competitive mom."

Meanwhile, Jazz power forward Carlos Boozer suggested he and fellow Duke product Shane Battier of Houston have the series in perspective: "He's a Rocket and I'm a Jazz," he said. "We're gonna love you off the court, and hate you on the court."

NAYSAYERS: The Houston Chronicle on Saturday picked the Rockets to win the series in seven games, while yet another ESPN.com analyst also went with Houston, making it 7-of-7.