Kyle Korver makes a tying three-pointer from the left corner, instead of passing to Mehmet Okur ... or Okur hits from the wing ... or Deron Williams delivers from straightaway, after the rebound is batted out to him.

If that final-seconds sequence had ended positively, one way or another, the Jazz likely would have earned a Game 7 showdown in Los Angeles, and who knows what might have happened then?

So here they are, 11 months later, playing in L.A. -- only with an opportunity they hardly could have wished for: a first-round meeting with the top-seeded Lakers in the Western Conference playoffs. Like it or not, this is their deferred Game 7, Sunday afternoon at Staples Center.

Eventually, this series is likely to evolve into a question of whether the Jazz can merely win a home game and avoid complete embarrassment. For now, Game 1 means everything, and not just because Lakers coach Phil Jackson is 42-0 lifetime in a best-of-seven series after winning the opener. This game is more about determining whether the Jazz can even manage to make the series worth watching, while the Lakers hope to destroy whatever sense of hope the visitors harbor at this point.

"We know they're going to come out and try to blow us out early," Williams said. "That's what this team does. They come out and try to pressure you on defense, try to take you out of your stuff early -- get you off your game. We can't let them do that. We have to be aggressive, we have to stay right in there and battle with them, fight with them."

Do the Jazz really have that kind of spirit in them anymore? That's the issue hovering over this series opener. The way the Jazz played down the stretch of the regular season, it may have not mattered if they'd won just one more game and faced Denver instead.

By the end of this series, if they're competitive at all against L.A., that stumbling finish may actually haunt the Jazz more. As of now, nothing suggests they could have beaten anybody else, anyway.

"For a while, we were just playing bad Basketball," Korver acknowledged. "That just wasn't us. I think we know that. I think we've identified things that we had to identify. I think you're going to see a much better team."

That's pretty much all anybody's asking now, isn't it? Amid all the rehashing and all the regret created by seven defeats in nine contests that pushed them down in the standings, Game 1 vs. the Lakers is the only moment of their season that the Jazz can do anything about. There's no going back and replaying the last two minutes of the first overtime in Miami last month, the end of the home loss to Minnesota or any part of the disgusting loss to Golden State.

The Jazz have to respond immediately, simply to restore some hometown faith and justify the effort of making the playoffs at all, and they know it. They can lose nobly to the Lakers in five, six or seven games and still accomplish something, or they can surrender meekly and endure a summer that's going to be long enough as it is. Those are their choices, amid almost universally bleak forecasts.

"Nobody's picking us to win," said Jazz forward Carlos Boozer, "but we're picking ourselves."

By mid-afternoon Sunday, we'll know if they're just kidding themselves.

kkragthorpe@sltrib.com