Along the way, Bryant made an impression on the Jazz's third-year guard. He reported to training camp a day earlier than the other NBA stars and started workouts immediately. He went to shoot on the first day of practice with one of the coaches and didn't return for three hours.

"One of the most competitive guys I've ever been around," Williams said. "He works so hard on his game. He's the best player in the world."

Now consider that the Jazz will have had all of 38 hours to prepare when they step on the court this afternoon at Staples Center to open the Western Conference semifinals against Bryant and the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers.

Not only will the Jazz have to find a way to slow Bryant, who already has scored 49 points in one game these playoffs, but also handle an impressive supporting cast that includes Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and Derek Fisher.

The Lakers are 26-5 with Gasol in the lineup and went 3-1 against the Jazz this season. Although the Jazz tuned up for Bryant with Houston's Tracy McGrady in the first round, Williams said the challenge is far greater.

"They've got a lot more on offense, a lot more to worry about," Williams said. "You can't just really focus on stopping one guy because Kobe's done a great job of getting everybody involved and making the players around him a lot better."

The Lakers acquired Gasol in a Feb. 1 trade from Memphis for a package built around Kwame Brown's expiring contract. They signed Fisher last summer after the veteran guard asked to be released from his contract, citing the medical needs of his infant daughter.

"They've had some pretty good gifts," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said.

If the quick turnaround between series wasn't enough, the NBA threw the Jazz another curveball Saturday, moving Game 2 against the Lakers from Tuesday to Wednesday. The Jazz now will fly home after today's game and return to Los Angeles for Game 2.

After sweeping Denver in the first round, the Lakers have enjoyed five days of rest. The biggest factor working in the Jazz's favor is their belief that the Lakers, who averaged 114.8 points in the series, didn't get much of a test from the Nuggets.

"Not much," Williams said. "Denver doesn't really play much defense. They just try to outscore people and you can't really do that against the Lakers. They really want to run, too. That's their game. They want to get out and run. You can't just get into that with them."

The first order of business will be stopping Bryant, with Ronnie Brewer and Andrei Kirilenko expected to shoulder the load.

The Jazz will try to follow the same script from the Houston series against McGrady. They will look to make Bryant work before he catches the ball, push him around as best as they can, contest every shot and converge as quickly as possible when he drives to the basket.

Assistant coach Tyrone Corbin was awake long after Friday's game finalizing the scouting report on the Lakers, then condensing it given the short turnaround. How the Jazz are going to stop Bryant remains an open question.

"It's going to be tough and it's going to be a team effort," Corbin said. "No one guy can stop a guy who's that kind of a player. It's going to be interesting to come up with some kind of scheme to slow him down a little bit."

As Sloan stressed Saturday, the Lakers present a host of problems beyond Bryant. Gasol is a gifted passer and the 6-foot-10 Odom is one of the NBA's most versatile players.

Fisher and Vladimir Radmanovic are dangerous three-point shooters and the Lakers have a quality bench led by Luke Walton.

Much as they did against the Rockets, the Jazz could ride Williams, who connected on six three-pointers and scored 25 points in their Game 6 victory over Houston. Carlos Boozer is a tough matchup inside for either Gasol or Odom, though Boozer struggled in the first round.

From their time together last summer with USA Basketball, Bryant and Williams have a mutual respect.

"He's a bad boy, bad boy," Bryant said. "I love his game. He's a little Cadillac. That is what I call him - 'Little Cadillac.' He's a phenomenal, phenomenal player and he's a great teammate and I look forward to playing with him again this summer."

Gasol sat out the Lakers' March 20 victory in Utah with a sprained ankle, so the Jazz have yet to see first-hand how the Lakers play with the Spanish star. Williams, though, didn't hesitate in saying the Lakers were the NBA's top team to close the regular season.

"I think they were playing the best basketball towards the end of the season once they got Gasol back and they're healthy," Williams said. "It's going to be a tall task for us to beat them, especially with them having home-court advantage, but we feel we can do it."

As under the radar as they fly much of the time, the Jazz were excited about playing on ABC - a first this season - today against one of the NBA's signature teams.

"The Lakers are one of the biggest teams in the world," Williams said. "Everybody knows them, everybody watches them. They've got the MVP on their team. . . . It's like a dream come true. You grow up watching these type of games and now you get to be a part of them."

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* Staff writer Rhiannon Potkey contributed to this report.

rsiler@sltrib.com

Western Conference semifinals

Jazz vs. Lakers

GAME 1

Jazz at Lakers - Today, 1:30 p.m., Ch. 4

GAME 2

Jazz at Lakers - Wednesday, 8:30 p.m., TNT

GAME 3

Lakers at Jazz - Friday, 7 p.m., KJZZ, ESPN

GAME 4

Lakers at Jazz - May 11, 1:30 p.m., Ch. 4

GAME 5*

Jazz at Lakers - May 14, time TBA, TNT

GAME 6*

Lakers at Jazz - May 16, time TBA, KJZZ, ESPN

GAME 7*

Jazz at Lakers -May 19, time TBA, TNT

*If necessary