It's the shoes. Isn't that what they say?
"I didn't change anything," said Karl Malone Saturday night after exploding for 51 points and 14 rebounds and leading the Utah Jazz to break their two-game losing streak, beating Golden State 123-109 in the Delta Center Saturday night.". . . I did change my shoes," Mailman said after pausing a second.
"I wore those shoes for two games, and those two games I played terrible," he said.
"I just threw them in the back somewhere," he said of those nasty old shoes. "I don't even want to sign them and give them to anybody."
In those two games, Malone's numbers were relatively normal, 27 points and 12 rebounds in the loss to Houston Tuesday, and 26 points and 22 rebounds in the loss to Denver Thursday.
But against Denver, his shooting from the field was only 9-for-28, while the Nuggets' Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf scored, ironically, 51. Against Houston, 15 of his points came on free throws as the Rockets bottled him up.
Golden State found no such way to stop him. Malone had the third-highest point total of his career, the two better ones being 61 and 52 poiints. Saturday, he made 19 of 28 shots from the field.
"We needed to stop the bleeding," Malone said.
"We couldn't do anything against him," said Golden State coach Rick Adelman. "I don't know what he would have had we not double-teamed him. He was terrific."
"He was concerned that he struggled shooting the last two games," said Jeff Hornacek, who pointed out to Malone that he was getting close to 50.
"Hornacek came up to me and said, `Mail, how many points you got?' said Malone. "He looked up at the scoreboard and said, `45?' He said, `Let's get 50,' " Malone said.
Malone started making four of eight shots the first quarter as the Jazz fell behind by three, but he was 3-for-3 with five free throws the second period. Still, Golden State outscored Utah, 37-28 in the second period.
The third period, Malone poured in 20 points, making seven of nine shots as the Jazz pulled into an 87-87 tie, coming from what had been 16 down with 7:40 left in that period. The fourth quarter, he added 12 points and five rebounds, making a layin to put Utah up by 13 with his 46th and 47th points, and adding back-to-back baskets at :59.9 and :47.9 seconds to reach 51 and put Utah up by 17, 121-104, before leaving the floor with :26.6 left.