Whats ahead for Utah Jazz  

for this season: early exit in the playoffs. they have one problem against houston they cant seem to solve: tracy mcgrady. if mcgrady could put up big numbers evey night, theres no way utah could get past the first round. game 6 is in the delta center, at least utah has a perfect record against the rockets at their home, but its no guarantee, we all know what t-mac is capable of, and his 16 assists performance in game 5 is another message sent. first he can score, now he can pass. thats deadly.

as for next season: with carlos boozer playing like a man possessed this season, i expect him to come up with more intense passion next season. as for deron williams, its the offseason, and another possible date with all-time utah best guard john stockton. we saw deron;s tremendous improvement this season after spending some time with stockton doing some basketball drills and getting some tips. and of course mehmet okur, the best long range shooting center in the league. but what i think andrei kirilenko might be the man to watch next season. after karl malone and john stockton left utah, andrei kirilenko has become their main man but eventually faded a bit with the emergence of boozer, williams and okur. if kirilenko could come up with the same intensity next season, utah will be the team to beat in the nba. imagine the boozer-williams-okur-kirilenko punch, now that's deadly. i wont be surprised utah will end up number 1 overall.