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I close my eyes, and I see Bruce Bowen in the corner, nailing yet another 3-pointer. I see Tony Parker barreling through the paint like a runaway locomotive. I see Fabricio Oberto calmly putting in layups off of back-door cuts, while all five Jazz players are rooted to the floor. And above all, I see Tim Duncan doing everything — pinpoint bounce passes, turnaround jumpers, even free throws (!!!).

When I open my eyes, all I see is the bare truth: the Utah Jazz are down 2-0 to the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. And we’re not coming back up.

These first two games have been so bad, it’s like one of those nightmares where just at the most horrible moment, when the tension is unbearable and you’re sure it CAN’T be real, you gasp and wake up. But there’s no waking, no comfort, no chance to catch your breath and put things in perspective. There’s only the Spurs and their bedamned efficiency and stifling defense and intimidation. They’re monsters. They’re the Boogeyman. They’re a silver-and-black hole that we just cannot escape from, after 18 straight tries in Alamo country. And there’s not a thing we can do about it.

It’s sickening how alike Games 1 and 2 were. We hang tough for a quarter, make some shots, get a few stops, generally perform well. Then we get summarily dismantled in the second quarter, as the Spurs simply choose not to miss (I swear, it’s like a conscious decision for this team). Then we pull back late in the fourth quarter when the Spurs have been mailing it in, just close enough to make them stop toying with us and put in the knockout punch. It’s like playing Tecmo Bowl and running backwards with Bo Jackson for thirty yards just for kicks, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, then realizing that the clock has already hit zero and you have to stop screwing around and actually score before someone gets a lucky tackle on you. That’s how the Spurs are against the Jazz in San Antonio. They’re Tecmo Bo. They’re too good to be allowed.

We played better overall last night. Boozer was involved, D-Will continued to do his thing, Memo hit some early shots. We had it going in the first quarter. We were better than Game 1.

But so were the Spurs. Every time we try to turn it up a notch, they get just that much more intense, that much more focused. And I don’t know what we can do about it.

These two games have exposed what Jazz fans already know: we’re simply not a very good defensive team. As much as the national media likes to talk about slow-paced, physical, grind-it-out Utah basketball, it isn’t true. We’ve won this year because we’ve been too good offensively. We’ve been weak defensively all year, especially when Andrei hasn’t been on his game. Boozer is at best an average defender. Memo is underrated defensively but still not fantastic. Deron Williams is physical but not quick enough. Fisher is too small. Gira is too clumsy. Brewer is too young. Millsap is too small. Harpring is too slow.

We were able to cover this weakness in the first two rounds — the Rockets aren’t a good shooting team, and the Warriors are too streaky. But you can’t hide a flaw this big against a team this good. They will strip you bare.

Things will go better in SLC (they can’t go too much worse). Memo will shoot better, as will Harpring and Fisher. Even Tim mentioned post-game that we shoot a lot better at home. And the Spurs will shoot worse (PLEASE GOD let them shoot worse). We’ll have more defensive energy. We’ll get a few more calls. I’m trying to stay optimistic.

One thing that Mark Jackson said last night on the ESPN broadcast was that the Jazz are letting the Spurs get whatever they want offensively. When you know a team is doing that, you have to make a conscious decision as a team to deny your opponent at least one thing, anything, so that you get some control back and start to dictate the game, if only a little bit. The Jazz need to clog the lane and stop Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili from penetrating, because that sets up everything else. They also need to be a LOT more aware on back-door cuts and screens — there’s simply no excuse for letting Fabricio “I should be in a GEICO caveman commercial” Oberto drop 14 and 7 on us. Close the lane, make the Spurs shoot from outside, and they’ll start to miss those shots in the pressure of our home court. It’s the only thing we can do.

But will it be enough? At this point, I don’t think anyone with a grain of realism can think we can win four of the next five games. We did it against the Rockets, yes, but as Williams points out, the Spurs are not the Rockets.

All we can do is hope.

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Layton Shumway is the copy chief for Brigham Young University’s Daily Universe newspaper. You can reach him at lss83@byu.net.