The Utah Jazz closed out their annual pre-Christmas trip, Thursday night, feeling loose, confident and full of good cheer - not to mention slightly crazy. Though they missed most of the holiday flavor while touring the eastern part of the country, by the wee hours of Friday morning they were making up for lost time, playing music, needling one another and stopping the team bus to pick up party food.
Two nights after being crushed in Cleveland, the Jazz wrapped up their five-game, 10-day trip with a 96-88 win over San Antonio at the new Alamodome. The Dome may be designed mainly for football, and it may not have the atmosphere of the old HemisFair Arena, but it suits the Jazz just fine."I love this Alamodome," said forward Karl Malone.
If the Jazz were teetering on the brink of silliness on their way back to Salt Lake, it was understandable. Their 4-1 record on the trip tied for their best mark ever on a five-game swing. The only blemish on their record was a 15-point loss at Cleveland on Tuesday. But once they hit San Antonio, they were back on course and running at high speed.
"Winning cures everything," said the Mailman. "Winning solves all problems."
The Jazz's record on the trip wasn't the only mark of note. John Stockton's clutch scoop-shot with 36 seconds left in the game helped the Jazz earn their second victory over the Spurs in as many games this year. It also pushed him past the 10,000-point mark for his career.
"I'm glad he did it on a play like that," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan.
Sloan applauded his team's intensity in a game that has often been a trap for the Jazz.
"Great way to end the trip," said guard Jeff Malone.
Though virtually all the players were excited (rookie Luther Wright left the arena wearing a Santa cap complete with dreadlocks), perhaps the happiest player of all was the Mailman, who finished with a team-high 27 points and 11 rebounds. For the past two weeks he has been declaring to anyone who cared to turn on a tape recorder that he was in the spirit of the season - and nothing was going to spoil his mood. Even when the NBA got heavy-handed and banned his blinking basketball shoes last week, Malone merely shrugged.
"I'm not a grinch, but I will say this: When teams win, it solves everything," he said.
Although the Jazz were determined to shrug off their Tuesday loss, they weren't the only team hoping to go into the Christmas holiday with a win. The Spurs lost a pulsating 90-88 decision Tuesday to Midwest Division rival Houston on a last-second shot. After watching his team mope into Wednesday's practice, coach John Lucas tried to lift spirits by joking that he would give Rodman $50 to dye his hair back to yellow, rather than red - in hopes of changing the Spurs' luck.
"We need a win to get this bad taste out of our mouths," Lucas told the San Antonio Express-News a day prior to the game. "We want to go into the holidays feeling good about ourselves for Christmas. Utah is a team that we are in a race with in the Midwest Division. They beat us at their place and now we have to beat them on our court and hold serve. We have to do whatever it takes to get a victory against them."
Rodman didn't change his hair and the Spurs failed to change their luck. The Jazz played the Spurs even in the first period and opened a six-point lead before the half.
The Jazz slowly began pulling away in the fourth period. Tom Chambers, dispatched off the bench, racked up seven of his 13 points in the fourth quarter. The lead grew to eight points with 8:20 to go on a Mailman basket.
As the Jazz kept up the pressure, San Antonio slowly unraveled. Rodman, who finished with 13 rebounds and just one point, hung onto the ball so long after a basket that the Spurs were hit with a techical for delaying the game. Chambers converted the free throw to boost the Jazz lead to seven.
The final three minutes were a Stockton clinic. He dropped in a clutch 3-point shot with 2:44 to go as the shot clock ran out. The basket moved Utah's lead from three to six points. On the next possession he drove through the middle and scooped up a driving shot that put him at 10,001 points for his career.
"The part I remember," said Stockton of the historic play, "is seeing David (Robinson) coming. I thought he was going to block it."
The Spurs went down in a flurry of missed shots.
With division-leading Houston losing on Thursday, the Jazz picture suddenly looked better than it has all year. The Jazz's 18-8 record is tied for the best record after 26 games in club history. In their last 12 games they've won nine.
"We can't worry where we are or what time of year it is," said Sloan, dismissing the significance of going into their Christmas break with a win. "Some people have got to work."
But by the time the game had ended and the Jazz had salted away the victory, work wasn't something the Mailman was thinking about. "I'll be seeing my family tonight," he said. "Hopefully this win will be my Christmas present for them."