No doubt the Utah Jazz will come out hot tonight against the San Antonio Spurs looking to avenge their embarrassing blowout loss in Game 2. But even with the energy and familiar feeling of their home arena, that’s going to be a tall order.

The Spurs have dominated the Jazz in pretty much every aspect of the game in the first two games of this series. It’s hard to believe a change of venue will fix that.

Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin says he won’t be changing much in his game plan, but he’ll be looking for the guys who aren’t ready to give up.

“You're backed up against the wall,” said Corbin. “You've got a minimum of two games left and as many as five games left to play on. Who's going to continue to fight and who's not? That's what you want to see in these situations. It's easy to fold your tent and go home and say, 'Oh, it's too much to do.' But fight is fight and competitors compete. Guys who want to quit will quit.”

It’s certainly going to be tough, but the Jazz can take some comfort in the fact that they had one of the best home records in the NBA this year at 25-8. Utah is a very tough place to play but one of those eight losses did come at the hands of the Spurs, and that was without Manu Ginobili and Tiago Splitter.

The San Antonio Spurs are up 2-0 in their first-round series versus the Utah Jazz thanks in large part to the play of Tony Parker and his ability to create havoc for the Jazz defense.

But heading into the series, many pointed to the Spurs' lack of size as a weakness the Jazz would exploit with Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap and Derrick Favors. However, Spurs' Tim Duncan has done a good job at containing one of Utah's bigs -- Al Jefferson.

Duncan has been effective at limiting Utah's big man in the post with solid defense and disrupting Jefferson's comfort zone. And it is this defense against one of the better centers in the NBA, that is on the mind of Jefferson.

"Tim Duncan doing a great job fighting me off the block. He know his job is done if he gets me off my sweet spot, but to me anywhere spot can be my sweet spot. I don't mind catching it off the block but it will be easier both for myself and my teammates if I catch it lower."

Indeed TD has been limiting Jefferson in this season. If you look at what "Big Al" averaged in the regular season, and compare it to what he is averaging in the playoff series against San Antonio, it is plain to see Duncan and the Spurs' defense has been effective at limiting Jefferson.

Though Orlando Magic's Ryan Anderson took home the 2011-12 NBA Most Improved Player award today, San Antonio Spurs' Danny Green and Tony Parker garnered a few votes for the award.

Green received 27 overall votes and Parker received three votes for MIP falling way short of Anderson's 260 overall votes.

Green and Parker truly deserved some votes considering Green wasn't even expected to make the Spurs squad and Parker has been having an MVP-type season, leading San Antonio to the West's best record.

This season, Green averaged 9.1 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 1.3 assists in the regular season as compared to last season when he averaged 5.1 points, 1.9 rebounds, and 0.3 assists.

As for TP, he averaged 18.3 points, and 7.7 assists during the regular season as compared to last season when he averaged 17.5 points and 6.6 assists.

Though it is hard to argue against Anderson winning the award, however, for Green and Parker, picking up a few votes speaks volumes as to their contributions to the team this season.

Nevertheless, I am sure both players are more interested in winning the NBA title in June over an individual award.

Salt Lake City is one of the hardest places to play in the league, especially due to the Jazz fans that fill up Energy Solutions Arena, where the San Antonio Spurs will play the Jazz for Game 3 on Saturday.

Spurs guard Tony Parker calls it one of the top five toughest cities to play in and Tim Duncan says he loves the atmosphere, but Manu Ginobili has dealt with cities and fans on a different level in the Euroleague.

Ginobili told News4WOAI that he's never felt like he's been in danger in Salt Lake City the way he has been overseas when batteries and other objects have been hurled at him.

At this point in the series, the only use for batteries would be to resuscitate the Jazz and keep them from flatlining for the rest of the series.

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ESPN released a list this week of the highest paying sports franchises in the world. They ranked them based on the average salary they pay to their players each year.

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of European soccer teams at the top along with the New York Yankees, but would you believe the San Antonio Spurs are 12th on the list? They’re sitting right behind Manchester United, an English Premier League soccer team famous for spending absurd amounts of money.

Actually, the Spurs have the second highest average annual salary of all the NBA teams at about $5.5 million a year. They’re behind the Lakers ($6.3 million) but above the Bulls ($5.3 million), the Celtics ($5.3 million), the Heat ($5.3 million) and the Knicks ($4.2 million).

Of course, since NBA teams are obviously smaller than soccer and baseball teams, the Spurs ranked 83rd in overall payroll but it’s still amazing to me to see them at the top of this list.

I would have never known the Spurs were one of the highest paying teams in the league until this list came out. I guess the salaries of the "Big 3" really add up quickly.

Is anyone else surprised by the Spurs’ place on this list?

It is a glorious day for sci-fi geeks across the globe as not only is it Star Wars Day with it being May 4th, as in "May the 4th be with you," but the premier of The Avengers movie.

Comic book fans everywhere are lining up to see Thor, Ironman, The Hulk, Captain America, and the rest of the Avengers, and so are the San Antonio Spurs.

Tony Parker, Tiago Splitter, Tim Duncan, Cory Joseph, Danny Green, Matt Bonner, Manu Ginobili, Boris Diaw and Patty Mills attended the premier of The Avengers last night and were surrounded by fans of the comic book series dressed as their favorite Avenger.

Such a shame not one of the players also got dressed up in an Avenger costume. How funny (or nerdy) would that have been?

New York Knicks' Tyson Chandler was recently named the 2011-12 NBA Defensive Player of the Year. By winning it, he snapped Dwight Howard's streak at winning the award and brought defense to a Knicks team not known for playing defense, especially during Mike D'Antoni's tenure.

Chandler was recently interviewed by Dime Magazine, and spoke about the toughest player he ever had to guard - San Antonio Spurs' Tim Duncan.

From saying TD was unstoppable in his prime to talking about how gifted Duncan is and much, much more check out what Chandler had to say about Timmy.

Now that they are leading the first-round series 2-0 and completely smashed the Utah Jazz in Game 2, the San Antonio Spurs are comfortably in control of the series versus the Jazz and are looking to win Game 3 Saturday and put a strangle hold on the series.

But even though the Spurs are cruising right now and are looking like they may be headed to the Western Conference Semi-Finals, Manu Ginobili is saying the team must respect Utah and remain humble.

"They are a team that we respect," said Ginobili, who scored only four points in Game 2. "They play hard, they're going to be hurt and they're going to play at home, so there's a lot of things that are combined for expecting a real tough couple of games.  

"We have to stay humble. We just did our job, taking care of homecourt advantage. We'll see how it goes in Salt Lake City."

Exactly Manu!

Until the Spurs are the first to win four games, the series against the Jazz is not over.

On Sunday, the San Antonio Spurs and Utah Jazz were given the early morning start on ESPN for game one of their opening round playoffs series. On Wednesday, the teams were given another early start so the Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Clippers could have the prime time game. Being two of the smaller markets in this years playoffs, the Spurs and Jazz are used to having TV spots out of the prime time lineup.

Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich seems to be alright with never getting the national attention, because molding the Spurs in the quiet, professional level of the Jazz’ franchise was a plan he’s had since taking over the Spurs in the mid 90s.

“The success that we’ve had and Utah’s had is really satisfying because it has come in small markets,” said Popovich of the two teams, “and people really appreciate it. The fans in both places are unbelievable, and basically demand that we do things a certain way I think.”

“We’re the only games in town, as far as the professional deal in concerned,” continued Popovich, “and when you find an organization that does it with class like we found Utah doing it, when we came here, R.C. (Buford) and I wanted to do it as closely as we could.”

Congratulations to Erazem Lorbek as he as named to the 2011-12 All-ACB team for the second time in his career.

Lorbek averaged 11.6 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.7 assists which were enough to have his peers, media and coaches to vote him to the team.

"I am proud to be named to the team, because there are many good players in this league that could also have been named. I am very happy to have been chosen and I thank everyone who voted for me."

"It's very difficult to achieve this, but I think we should highlight the work of the whole team, this season for getting a lot of wins and for finishing first in the league during the regular season."

"This gives me strength to continue, because it means I've done a good job. Now I hope I can keep this pace."

Lorbek (whose rights were acquired by the San Antonio Spurs via a 2011 draft day trade with the Pacers) might be interested in coming to the NBA this summer. Recently, it was reported that Lorbek is coming to the Spurs this summer, however, Lorbek has yet to say anything public about his future plans whether it be in San Antonio or overseas.