As seatmates on the plane, Williams and Boozer came to similar conclusions about what they saw. Williams called the 111-104 loss "disappointing" while Boozer described it as "frustrating." Either way, it left the Jazz flying low and facing elimination tonight.

"It was upsetting watching it just because we had so many chances," Williams said. "We were right there. We did so many dumb plays, helping off of guys when we should have stayed home, missing shots. We can just play much better down the stretch, I think."

"It was tough," Boozer added. "We had a lot of opportunities. I thought we could have had a couple more free throws and we gave up too many free throws to them. When you watch tape of the game, you wish you could jump in the screen and play it all over again."

Trailing 3-2 in the Western Conference semifinals, the Jazz will be fighting for their playoff lives in tonight's Game 6 at EnergySolutions Arena. At a minimum, the Jazz have their 41-5 home record this season.

They also found themselves in a similar situation last year, when the Jazz returned home down 3-2 after a 96-92 Game 5 loss to Houston but went on to win the first-round series in seven games.

"You don't have to win two [tonight]," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. "You just have to win one game, and that's the focus you have to have. I think it's exciting, myself. I always have loved to be in those situations."

"We're in a position where we can take it a game at a time," Boozer added. "For us, there's one game left and that's [tonight]. We win that game, there's one game left after that. And that's how we did it with Houston last year."

Even if the Jazz force Game 7 on Monday, the odds of advancing to the conference finals would be long.

The road team is 19-79 in Game 7 history, winning just 19.4 percent of the time. The Jazz won a road Game 7 last year against Houston, but have struggled at Staples Center against the Lakers, going 0-5 this season and 3-17 all-time.

"We have all the confidence in the world that we're going to have a Game 7," Kyle Korver said.

Boozer said the Jazz would be loose despite the pressure of tonight's game. Williams added that they faced must-win situations in Games 3 and 4 and came through. More than anything, though, the Jazz will need to have short memories when it comes to Wednesday's loss. Instead of trailing by double digits at halftime, as they did in Games 1 and 2 in Los Angeles, the Jazz went into halftime down by seven.

They had the game tied entering the fourth quarter, but never could push into the lead and put pressure on the Lakers at home.

The Jazz had five possessions with the chance to take the lead in the second half. They missed all four shots on those possessions, with Ronnie Brewer called for a travel and Mehmet Okur splitting two free throws to leave the score tied 84-84.

"We definitely played better than we did the first two games against them at their place," Williams said. "That's the most promising thing. We had chances to win the game and we were right there till the end."

Boozer went 2-for-5 in the fourth quarter and said he thought he had been fouled on at least two of the misses. The Lakers went 34 of 42 from the foul line, compared to 24 of 28 for the Jazz. For the series, the Jazz have attempted 147 free throws to the Lakers' 193.

"You can't get the basketball inside much more than what we did, in my opinion," Sloan said. "I haven't seen all of it, but to get the basketball inside, you've got to come away with something, and we couldn't come away with a free throw or basket."

To win Game 6, the Jazz will have to find a way to execute with the Lakers trapping Williams off the pick-and-roll and packing it in against Boozer inside. They will look to cut down on their 19 turnovers from Wednesday and slow Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, who combined to score 43 points.

As Williams noted, the Jazz have been two different teams at home and on the road this season. They have lost only two home games since Dec. 29 - to the Lakers on March 20 and Houston in Game 3 of the first round.

What's left unsaid is that the Jazz might be playing their last home game of the season tonight.

rsiler@sltrib.com