Eric Williams was one confused rookie.
Utah Jazz guard John Stockton had just stolen the ball from the Boston Celtics forward, and the Delta Center crowd responded with a roaring standing ovation."I wondered why they got loud," Williams said. "When he stole the ball I thought they were hollering because it was a great steal."
It may have been, but more importantly, it was the 2,311th steal of Stockton's illustrious career, making the Jazz guard the NBA's all-time steals king.
As for the rest of the game, well, let's just say that the greatest suspense was waiting for Stockton to break the record. The Jazz began to pull away from the struggling Celtics in the second quarter and led by as much as 32 before the deep bench allowed Boston to score 39 face-saving points in the fourth quarter. Final score: Jazz 112, Celtics 98. It was Utah's 13th win in 16 games and left it atop the Midwest Division.
"Those guys really picked our defense apart," Boston coach M.L. Carr said of the Jazz. "They're obviously a great basketball team."
Surprisingly, the guy who played the key role in the Jazz's big second quarter was Greg Foster, Utah's No. 3 center. Foster scored 14 points in the quarter, hitting seven of eight shots, and his only miss was a long try at the buzzer. He started off by nailing four jumpers as Celtic defenders left him open on the perimeter. Foster said he wondered if anyone was ever going to guard him.
He said he was thinking, "My heck, where y'all at?"
When the Celtics finally started covering him outside, he went inside and scored layups on three straight possessions. He finished with 16 points.
"The game plan was to take it out of Stockton's and Malone's hands and make somebody else beat us, and Foster did," Carr said.
By halftime the Jazz were up by 18, allowing everyone to relax and focus on Stockton's steals count - except that it looked for a while as if Jazz coach Jerry Sloan might not put his star point guard back in the game for the fourth quarter.
Sloan claimed that he put Stockton in strictly because that's what he always does at the start of the fourth, but Stockton said it may have had something to do with wanting to get this little distraction out of the way.
"I did want to get it over with," Stockton said. "In another situation I might not have gone in for the fourth quarter."
Stockton didn't get his first steal until the second quarter. At the 5:08 mark, he knocked a ball away from Eric Montross that Antoine Carr saved from going out of bounds, preserving the steal.
That theft tied him with former record-holder Maurice Cheeks at 2,310. The second steal occurred at the 8:21 mark of the fourth quarter. Williams caught the ball in the low post and put the ball on the floor, only to have Stockton turn and take it away.
"I didn't think going down that `this was it' or anything," Stockton said. "I just took a swipe at it."
"He has such quick hands, they came out of nowhere," Williams said.
Asked if it bothered him to be a footnote in the NBA record books, Williams said, "No. It was inevitable. It was going to happen. There's going to be a time when someone else breaks his record, and I'll be out of history."
Stockton passed another milestone Tuesday night, becoming the Jazz's all-time leader in 3-point field goals. He came into the game tied with Darrell Griffith at 530 and made one. Asked what he felt about that mark, Stockton smiled and said, "I'm glad they moved the line in. I guess I don't get much satisfaction from that."
Karl Malone led the Jazz with 24 points, making 10 of 11 shots. Carr scored 15; David Benoit had 14 points, eight rebounds; Adam Keefe contributed 13 points, seven boards. Stockton had 14 assists.
The Jazz next play the Toronto Raptors on Thursday night at the Delta Center.