New opportunity — Utah Jazz try to even the series, something they missed against Spurs

"I think if we play that kind of defense, we could play against anybody," Boozer said. "Regardless of the offensive side of the ball, if we play active defense, and we're aggressive and getting steals, that creates some offense for us and fastbreak points."

Jazz coach Jerry Sloan couldn't have said it better.

But what really impressed Sloan on Friday, he suggested Saturday, was the Jazz's will to win — a trait not exactly front and present when the Lakers took the series' first two games in Los Angeles rather handily.

"We were a little bit more alive," Sloan said.

"They made us look bad in the early part of the ballgame, but guys fought through that," he added. "Over there, it seemed like we had a difficult time fighting back as much as we needed to to stay in the game."

In Game 3, unlike Games 1 and 2, Sloan suggested, the Jazz acted as if they truly do believe they can take this 1-4 seed series from the Lakers.

"I think they do," he said. "Otherwise, they wouldn't have come and played as hard as they did (Friday night).

"I thought we played much harder, a lot more aggressive," the Jazz coach added. "We tried to do what we had to do in order to contain some of the stuff they were killing us with."

And now Utah has life.

Which has to be a good thing.

Then again, the Jazz thought they had a heartbeat after a certain Game 3 win against the Spurs as well.

"We went into that series expecting to win that, too," Boozer said. "We didn't go in there expecting to lose."

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com