LOS ANGELES -- Some glass brings fuzzy figures into focus. Some lets you see right through it. Some reflects, mirroring the image that stands before it.
Then there is some so special, it does all three.It is a window through which the Indiana Pacers peer, only to see . . . Who is it? Tough to make out. Might it be . . . themselves? Perchance. Or maybe, just maybe, that is the Jazz on the other side of that magic glass.
Rik Smits thinks it is.
"We're the same," the Pacers center said when asked if he, too, sees through that window, the one that may soon seal opportunity clear on the other side.
It is the very window creeping to a close on the Jazz, one Indiana can crack by doing what Utah did not in 1997 and '98: not just reach the NBA Finals, but win the whole shebang.
The Pacers open with Game 1 tonight against the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers, and they do so well aware of something the Jazz ponder from home.
"I think we're all realizing that we're not getting younger," Smits said, "and these chances are not going to come easy."
Age is a primary factor that makes these Pacers the Jazz of the East. There are others, too, from the way they play to stars who shine similarly and for nearly as long.
"They're smart. They know how to execute," said Travis Knight, the Lakers' Salt Lake City-born backup big man. "I think they've had the same team together for quite a few years, so they know how to play with each other, which is important in the playoffs."
Knight, whose path to the NBA included a season-long stop at Alta High, spoke not of his former hometown Jazz, but rather of the Pacers. It could have easily been either.
Indiana plays a game that mimics that of Utah, one Jazz fans must settle to see since Portland dispatched Karl Malone and crew five games into their second-round, best-of-seven Western Conference playoff series.
"They are a very hustle-oriented team. At the same time, they are a detail team," A.C. Green of the Lakers said in describing not the Jazz, but the Pacers. "They stick to their Xs and Os pretty well. It's not fastbreak points all the time. It's more of 'We're going to get you in a halfcourt offense; we're going to set up, and then we are going to break you down.' "
Sound familiar?
"They are good from that standpoint," Green added with a refrain heard from so many after facing the Jazz in recent years. "I appreciate seeing that. That's the way basketball should be played."
Pushing the Pacers to play that way, of course, is undisputed leader Reggie Miller, who, like Malone and longtime Jazz point guard John Stockton, has a made a career of playing in one place.
Just like the core of the Jazz, in fact, several Pacers have managed to stay together longer than the tightest bunch of hand-holding kindergarten kids -- not an easy task in this modern era of money-grubbing players who change teams more often than the little ones lose their gloves.
Stockton has been with the Jazz 16 seasons, Malone 15 and Jeff Hornacek, before retiring after this season, six-plus. Miller has been with the Pacers 13 seasons, Smits 12, Dale Davis nine, Derrick McKey seven and Mark Jackson a half-dozen himself.
That is why Indiana savors its Finals appearance so much, a la the Jazz knowing just what it means to have made it so far. It is also why the Pacers, underdogs that they are, feel as unfulfilled as an NBAer from Utah.
"It is awesome. It is truly a blessing to have the opportunity to play in the Finals. But we're not just happy with that," Jackson said. "I think the thing you can do is fall into the trap of saying, 'Hey, we made it.'
"We can be thrilled about being here, but there's nothing like winning the whole thing."
Like the Jazz, the Pacers have no clue when, or even if, they will have another run to the Finals in them.
With Hornacek's retirement, some doubt Utah will make it back for the third time in five seasons. Indiana, too, may be soon be breaking up what has been one awfully good thing.
Four of five Pacer starters -- Miller, Smits, Jackson and Jalen Rose -- become free agents after these Finals. Ditto for Austin Croshere, who has emerged as a key reserve. Veteran Sam Perkins is expected to retire after the season, and Smits will ponder the same over the summer.
That is why the Pacers realize they must pound the glass, wipe it clean and even kiss a few shots of their own off it in this series. If they do not, they may well be looking at a window locked shut, just like that one making its way down in Utah.
"We're just trying to make the best of it," Smits said, "while we have the chance."
It is an opportunity the Pacers thought might have come sooner, but, hey, who are they to complain?
"God's timetable . . . is not the same as ours," Jackson said. "If you had me map it out, we would have been here five, six, seven years ago. But one thing you can't question is . . . God. He knows what He is doing, and He doesn't make any mistakes."
"I think I've always believed (we'd make it), but probably felt it would be a little sooner," Smits added.
It is a feeling with which Smits knows many of the Jazz can relate.
"We're in the same situation," he said. "Definitely."
E-MAIL: tbuckley@desnews.com