"I think he deserves it," Deron Williams said. "I don't know how he didn't get it when he had 81 that year and had like ten 50s in a row. It's well overdue."

"He's probably been the best player in the game for the last few years," Carlos Boozer added, "but he finally deserved it. I'm happy for him."

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that Bryant had won his first MVP award. Bryant averaged 28.3 points as the Lakers went 57-25 in the regular season.

Frequent flyers

After announcing that the Jazz and Lakers would play Games 1 and 2 on Sunday and Tuesday in Los Angeles, the NBA had to make a major correction. The league announced Saturday that Game 2 in fact would be played Wednesday, not Tuesday.

That news left the Jazz scrambling to change their travel plans on short notice. Now the Jazz will fly home after this afternoon's game and return for Game 2.

An NBA spokesman attributed the change to "scheduling error."

The Jazz, meanwhile, are just 3-14 against the Lakers at Staples Center, including two double-digit losses this season.

Getting defensive

Having played with Bryant last summer at the FIBA Americas Championship, Williams got a first-hand look at his competitive nature.

"He gets the fire going," Williams said. "He wants to guard everybody. He wants to guard the best player. That's his nature. He wants to be the best."

That said, Williams thought Derek Fisher, as opposed to Bryant, would match up against him in the series. Bryant's size and strength could cause problems for Williams, who is big enough to bully opposing point guards. Fisher is playing with a partially torn tendon in his right foot.

Scout team

With fellow assistant coach Scott Layden taking the lead on the Houston series, Tyrone Corbin could turn his attention to scouting the Lakers and Denver in the first round.

That nevertheless meant a late night for Corbin after the Jazz eliminated the Rockets on Friday to set up a date with the Lakers in the conference semifinals.

"I was up just trying to finalize some things because the turnaround was so quick," Corbin said. "Now we're going so quick, we have to condense a lot of what we've done, so we don't give the guys too much stuff to memorize."

The Jazz will have had only 38 hours between games when they take the court today.

"Ideally, you'd probably like an extra day to prepare and everything," Kyle Korver said, "but that's just the way it is. Hopefully, we can just ride the momentum that we have from [Friday] night and get another one [today]."

rsiler@sltrib.com