If anyone has any ideas on how to get inside the Utah Jazz's heads, please give coach Jerry Sloan a call. He could use the help. Just when they think they're playing well on the road, they breeze into Philadelphia and lose to a team on Friday that has trouble scoring even in practice. A day later the Jazz are at Madison Square Garden, facing the snarling, bad-tempered defense of the New York Knicks, and win 86-72.
What exactly is going on with the Jazz is hard to tell. One night they are experiencing mood swings, erratic behavior, inability to make decisions and feeling depressed, next thing you know, they're pounding the Knicks into a heap. On Friday they lost by nine to the hapless Philadelphia 76ers; the next night they hold the Knicks to 52 fewer points than the Sixers.If the victory did wonders for the Jazz's morale, it came with a large asterisk. All-Star center Patrick Ewing, still bothered by a neck spasms, sat harmlessly on the bench in street clothes, leaving nothing more imposing to deal with at center than aging Herb Williams.
"If Jeff Malone and John Stockton and Karl Malone sat out, they'd still play the game anyway," defended the Jazz's Karl Malone.
Even without Ewing, the Knicks' rough-and-tumble game caught the Jazz off guard in the early minutes. The Jazz would go inside, only to find themselves slapped, bumped, pushed and threatened. But without Ewing to back things up, New York wasn't able to follow through.
"Ewing's a great player. And it's a big loss not to have him out there," said Jazz Sloan. "But that puts more pressure on us to try to win the game."
"Maybe they said with Patrick out of the game, we were supposed to win. We did," said the Mailman. "But last night (in Philadelphia) they said we were supposed to win, too, and we didn't."
Although the Jazz converted a strong run in the early fourth quarter into a fairly wide margin, it wasn't without some early problems. Bothered by the Knicks' pounding defense, they committed five first-quarter turnovers and managed only 16 points. But to their relief, the Knicks were no better, racking up only 18.
By the half, the Jazz had built a 38-36 lead but had upped their turnover total to 13.
Utah got as far ahead as nine in the third quarter but just as quickly went into a spin to trail 58-54. The Jazz scored just 16 points again in the third quarter.
"New York got very physical with us. Nothing comes easy against them," said Jazz forward Tyrone Corbin. "But we held our composure."
Trailing by four going into the fourth quarter, the Jazz went on a 16-0 run to lead by 11 with 5:26 remaining. Corbin and Jay Humphries landed 3-point shots and Corbin added two other baskets to key the run.
The Knicks never cut the lead to fewer than nine the rest of the way.
"We still should have won," said Knicks' guard Doc Rivers. "We should have just run our offense like we always do. Herb's (Williams) a very capable center and we had some other options we could have used. But quite frankly, we just didn't shoot the ball very well."
The final tally on the Jazz's five-game trip included wins at Dallas (snore), Miami (hmmmm) and New York (really?) and losses at Orlando (naturally) and Philadelphia (whaaaat!!???). They are now 4-3 overall on the road this year. The Jazz have never in their history played .500 road basketball for a season. Nineteen wins is the franchise mark for road victories.
Meanwhile, the Knicks must try hold things down until Ewing comes back from his injury. "We have to rally the troops, lick our wounds and come back," said New York coach Pat Riley. "It's early in the season."
GAME NOTES: The game didn't begin until after 8:45 p.m. (EST). Originally scheduled for 8:30, the contest was set to follow the Virginia Slims Tennis Tournament, also played at MSG. The Jazz arrived at the arena at 6:40 and waited until the tennis court was taken down and the basketball court assembled before it could warm up. When a New York reporter asked Karl Malone if he "had a couple minutes" to talk, Malone said, "Two minutes? I got two hours. It's not like I've got anything to do." . . . The Jazz hadn't won in New York since February, 1986 . . . New York's John Starks went only 4-21 from the field . . . Going into Saturday's game, the Knicks had won five of the last six against the Jazz . . . Celebrities in the crowd included John McEnroe, Wilt Chamberlain, Richard Lewis, Bill Murray and Spike Lee.