So yes, the 18,997 beautiful people (OK, to be accurate, maybe as few as 18,232 members of the Staples Center crowd could technically be considered "beautiful") in attendance for Game 2 were pleased with the substance of Tuesday night's results — namely, a 119-109 win over the Utah Jazz and a 2-0 series lead.

But they clearly wouldn't have minded a few style points to go with all the other kind of points. Especially when for the second straight game in the series, the Lakers got off to a dominating start, only to allow the Jazz to hang around until the game's final moments.

"It's tough against this team," Lakers star Kobe Bryant said when asked if he'd like to see a more sustained effort from his teammates. "It's tough to do it. Hopefully we'll get an opportunity to do it in Game 3. ... Our execution wasn't up to snuff."

But for the first 12 minutes, the Lakers' execution wasn't just up to snuff. It was almost unprecedented.

In a startling display of offensive efficiency, L.A. made 18 of their 21 shots in the opening quarter. Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom didn't miss one of their combined 12 attempts and of the six Lakers to score in the quarter, only Bryant shot as poor as 50 percent from the field.

As impressive as L.A.'s effectiveness on the offensive end was, the variety of their attack was almost as remarkable. When Bynum wasn't showing a deft touch with either hand, he was running the lane and finishing on the break. When Gasol wasn't spinning baseline past a thoroughly confused Carlos Boozer, he was camped on the elbow, showing off his mid-range game. And for his part, Bryant was content to play distributor for much of the quarter, driving the lane then dishing to a wide-open Trevor Ariza and Derek Fisher, who made all three of their 3-point attempts in the quarter.

"Well, it was a great start on our part and I think the energy was excellent," Gasol said. "We were playing really well, making shots and coming up with defensive stops."

"They do a good job of coming at you early and trying to blow you out early," Boozer said.

In those 720 seconds of game time, the Lakers aptly demonstrated not only why they're the overwhelming favorites to emerge from the Western Conference, but perhaps the only team capable of handling the nightmare that is Quicken Loans Arena should the Cavs be waiting for them.

And in the ensuing 2,160 ticks of the clock, L.A. showed why you can't quite pencil them through to the NBA Finals ... yet.

After that kind of start, L.A. fans — at least, those who wouldn't have seen a Lakers rout as an opportunity to beat the traffic — should have spent the fourth quarter screaming for free tacos. Instead, they were imploring the Lakers at the top of their lungs to play a little defense.

As well they should have been. The Lakers were up by 20 shortly before halftime, had withstood a third-quarter Jazz run to push the lead back to 15 early in the fourth quarter ... and still held just a three-point lead with 3:17 to play.

So improbably, a game that started with the Lakers shooting almost 86 percent from the field in the first quarter didn't end until Gasol blocked a pair of shots and forced Utah into a 24-second violation with 1:20 left in the game.

If Lakers coach Phil Jackson was angry at his team for the way it failed to close out the Jazz in Game 1, on Tuesday he was mostly mad at himself.

"I think it was my fault," Jackson said. "Substitution probably hurt us a bit in the course of the game and I think that I tried to play too many players at that time in the game to get us going, which created a bit of hesitancy."

Regardless of who's to blame, this storyline has become awfully familiar in L.A. And it stems from further back than the Jazz's too-little, too-late rally in Game 1.

For as long as the Lakers continue on this admittedly bumpy road through the postseason, they will be unable to shake the specter of last year's playoffs — specifically Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

It's easy to forget given how the Lakers took their ball and went home before the Celtics put the finishing touches on their 39-point Game 6 coronation. But the loss that's possibly lingering in L.A.'s subconscious, doing yet-to-be-determined damage to their collective psyche, came two games earlier, when the Lakers blew a seemingly unblowable 24-point lead and a chance to tie the series at two wins apiece.

In the first two games against the Jazz, the Lakers have seen similar leads (of 22 and 20 points, respectively) whittled away to almost nothing.

It seems unlikely that the Lakers' old nemesis, the Celtics, will derail L.A.'s shot at a title this time around. But it's not so far-fetched to think this new nemesis — whether you call it a lack of a killer instinct or a loss of focus — could.

"Games, at this level, could go either way," Gasol said. "Obviously it was a little bit surprising, I guess, to see them that close so close to the end. But they have a good quality team. They played well. They fought all the way through. They never let up."

As talented as the Lakers are, they could stand to learn to do the same thing.