"I think they did a good job crowding him once he put the ball on the floor and tried to surround him," Bryant said. "We'll have to make adjustments in this next game in terms of freeing him up a little bit. Get him a little more spacing."

But spacing, Jackson said, wasn't Gasol's only problem.

"It's not about getting more space. It's about him understanding what's happening, picking the ball up and hitting the open guy," Jackson said. "They're leaving guys wide open. He's just got to get the basketball and put it in people's hands and they're going to score. That's his responsibility."

The Jazz, of course, preferred how they ended up being the "people" who often got the ball in their hands, thanks to Gasol et al.

"Obviously, I turned the ball over a lot in the first half. I did not get in any rhythm and any confidence — more the opposite, to be honest with you," Gasol said. "Hopefully, I'll be able to do a better job reading the defense."

Despite Gasol's struggles and everything else that went wrong for them and right for the Jazz in Game 3, the Lakers took a positive spin out of the loss. They felt good about whittling Utah's 12-point fourth-quarter lead down to three late and having a legitimate chance to snatch a win at EnergySolutions Arena.

"Even though with all that, big game of (Carlos) Boozer, pretty good games of (Mehmet) Okur and (Deron) Williams, us having 18 turnovers and only (14) assists, we were right there," Gasol said. "Which tells you if we were to do different things a little better, we should be OK. ...

"We had a great chance. Even though we didn't have a really good game, we were right there."

The Jazz will likely be happy if he stays up until the wee hours Monday thinking the same thing about Game 4.

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E-mail: jody@desnews.com