Karl Malone said he wasn't 100 percent sure Saturday morning if he should play.
His badly sprained right ankle wasn't his biggest concern. He was more worried about his team - worried that if he played poorly against the Portland Trail Blazers, it might hurt the Jazz's chances. On the other hand, if he didn't play and the Jazz lost, his conscience would bother him.Malone's wife, Kay, told him he shouldn't play. So did his teammates, arguing that there's still a lot of basketball left this season. But while the Mailman knows that's true, he also knows the Jazz hold a slim lead over the hottest team in the NBA, the San Antonio Spurs.
"I know my limitations, but I also know how big every game is," Malone said.
Malone also has this idea - almost a foreign concept in today's NBA - that if you're being paid to play, you should play. Like his longtime runningmate, John Stockton, he possesses an old-fashioned work ethic.
"They're the ones that set the standard for the guys coming in here," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan.
"I'm not trying to be a hero," Malone said. "I guess if I'd played like (bleep), you guys would be standing there saying, `Why did you play?' Once I suit up to play, I make no excuses."
Malone may not have been trying to be a hero, but he was, to his teammates, and to the fans who gave him a standing ovation after a 31-point, nine-rebound, 43-minute performance against a Portland team that sent big guys against him in waves.
"It was a phenomenal effort," Jazz forward Adam Keefe said. "I saw his ankle this morning and it was big. For him to come out and play was huge, but for him to come out and dominate was phenomenal."
The Blazers knew Malone was hurting, and they tried to run a couple of plays at him early in the game. But it soon became apparent that Malone wasn't going to back down or run around like a guy on, well, like a guy on a bad ankle. At one point in the second quarter, he even dashed downcourt to knock away a breakaway layup by Portland's James Robinson.
Stockton, asked if he was surprised that Malone played, said, "No. He is, he is, he's . . . my idol, what the heck. He gave us an inspired effort."
To be able to play, Malone had to go through 14-15 hours a day of treatment since he sprained the ankle on Wednesday. He credits the Jazz trainers for putting in long hours helping him.
"It almost seems like I'm married to them," he joked. Long after Saturday's game, Malone lay on a table in the Delta Center training room, his leg encased in a black plastic sheath that covered his foot, ankle, most of his leg, to well above the knee. He looked tired, and for good reason. The pain had gotten so bad the night before that he got out of bed at 4 a.m. and immersed the ankle in a bucket of ice.
He knows that the ankle won't get any better as long as he plays on it, that it's one of those things that requires rest. And he may eventually take some time off. But for now, his mind is at ease, because he played - and produced.
"I'm not trying to win an award, I was just trying to win a ballgame," he said. "This is a game here that I'll remember a long time."