‘Getting it Back’ (Melissa Majchrzak - NBAE/Getty Images)

What to make of the incredible shrinking of Carlos Boozer? The leading scorer, double-double king and two-time All-star, who spent most of the year among the league leaders in field-goal percentage is in one grade-A serious funk. One stinky-stank funkadelic funk at such an unfunkadelic time is causing Jazz fans everywhere to yell in unison at their TV sets. They are pleading with their plasmas, hollering at their HDs, loathing their LCDs. The evil empire is up 2-zip and the Jazz are dangling precariously on the edge of the death star while Darth Vader (Kobe) is ready to pummel them soundly with his MVP trophy. Where is our Luke? Our cavalry? Where is our Carlos Boozer?

Maybe whoever brainwashed the Grizzlies to give up Pau Gasol for a bag of magic beans got to Boozer to. Hypnotic suggestion? Voodoo curse? A bad case of the yips? A secret microchip planted by some over-zealous ABC executive praying for a Lakers-Celtics final? Who knows but the Jazz are now officially at DEFCON-5 and are in serious need of a Boozerectomy. Not to put any more pressure on you Booze, but you’ve got the entire Jazz Nation hanging on every jump shot. We are the wind beneath your wings, okay maybe that is a stretch but we get really ticked off when you are clankin’ more iron than a chain-gang.

You’ve lost your confidence and you need to go to your happy place and get it back. I don’t know if you need to go metaphorically run on the beach with Apollo Creed ala Rocky Balboa, but you need the Eye of the Tiger! You need to dig deep and find that inner Boozer and pull him up by his high-tops. You are BOOZER, lets hear you roar. Yes, the Lakers have had their share of dynasties but this is not one. Not yet anyway. These guys are not Magic, Jabbar and Shaq. They are Kobe and his merry band of roll players whose names I can’t even pronounce who take anything Kobe shovels them their way.

For all you Jazz fans screaming “Boozer, what are you thinking?” I have got the answer right here. With the power vested in me by Larry H Miller as an official Jazzbot blogger, here it is what was going on in Boozer’s mind during game 2….queue to squiggly dream lines meaning a dramatic re-enactment is following:

Boozer with the ball 15 feet from the basket cradling the ball as Pau Gasol gets in his grill. “Alright Pau, what’s the deal with your name anyway? It’s not Pau, it is supposed to be PAUL…you call that a beard?..It looks like a muskrat has made a home on your chin….what is that smell?…we’ve played like 30 seconds and you already reek man! It’s called deodorant, why don’t you try it sometime?…Don’t they have showers in Spain? Well stinky, I am going to make you pay cause I don’t miss from here…..Well okay I just might…you know the more I think about it I probably will miss… I used to be able to roll out of bed and drain this shot…I could drive it in but last time Turiaf swatted my last shot halfway to Santa Monica.. Walton is in there too…whats up with Walton’s dad anyway?..He is whacked …At least I am still shooting better than Collins… …I still cant believe Prince painted my house purple….I wonder if Dyan Cannon has had botox..looks like Jack is talking to Denzel…..check out all those championship banners…maybe I just better dish this one to Brewer”

Boozer watching Kobe Bryant driving the lane right directly at him….“Gulp..here we go again..you shouldn’t even be a Laker! You were demanding a trade, you were supposed to be a Bull or a Maverick…You want a piece of this?…Bring it MVP!! In case you forgot I was on the All-star team too…here comes foul number two…how am I supposed to stop this guy… hey isn’t that the dude from Titanic sitting next to the guy who plays Spiderman? What the crap? I didn’t know they hung together…They should make a sequel to Titanic, that is one of my favorite movies EVER!..it still makes me cry when ever I hear Celine sing that song”…. Kobe dunks and Boozer picks up the foul.

Boozer, you are back off foreign soil and are home now for two games so what’s it going to be? How will it play out? Your legacy is on the line. Will they someday name a street after you or build a bronze monument? Will they talk of how you rescued the Jazz and stopped the mighty Lakers juggernaut or will the talk be about your colossal flame-out when the Jazz needed you the most? The ball is in your court.