TONIGHT’S WESTERN CONFERENCE FINAL OPENER

UTAH JAZZ (64-18, 7-1) vs. HOUSTON ROCKETS (57-25, 7-3)

Season series: 2-2

TV: TNT, 5:30 p.m.

If this doesn’t end well for the Rockets, they’re going to have all summer to lament letting the Seattle SuperSonics off the hook when they had them down, 3-1, with Game 5 in Houston.

Instead of a five-game breeze, the league’s oldest team--four starters 33 or over--got a seven-game war, by the end of which they were bending over, pulling at their shorts, looking gassed. With 48 hours’ rest, including the plane ride to Salt Lake City, they’ll start the Western Conference finals.

Meanwhile, the Jazz, no children themselves with three starters over 34 when Karl Malone gets there in July, got a week’s rest after putting the Lakers away.

Aside from that, the teams are evenly matched. The Jazz is a great home team, 38-3 in the Delta Center during the season, 5-0 in the playoffs, but the Rockets play well on the road (3-1 this postseason.)

The Jazz must double-team Hakeem Olajuwon, who averaged 30 points against them. The Rockets must double-team Malone, who averaged 26 against them. However, as the Lakers can attest, the Jazz are better at doubling and rotating.

The Rockets are more talented--the Lakers with Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West are the only other team in league history with three 20,000-point scorers--but look like they’re in worse shape. Charles Barkley even ran laps after one playoff game, but it’s late for that.

Prediction: With their big three healthy, the Rockets were 32-8 during the season and looked like the best in the West. If they had beaten Seattle in five, I would have picked them--and if they had won, I would have picked them in the finals over any Eastern team.

Now it looks like the Jazz, 4-3.

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Western Conference schedule, C10