There was little panic evident in the Utah Jazz's demeanor at practice Saturday.
For the most part, they agreed they'd played poorly for three quarters of Friday's Game 3 loss to the Houston Rockets, and they expect to correct that situation in today's Game 4 (1:30 p.m.) at The Summit."I have no doubt about this team," said Jazz forward Karl Malone. "I want guys to stay positive. You can't look at one game and say, `Oh my gosh, here they come.' "
The explanations for Utah's downfall were many: poor rebounding, weak screens, shoddy execution, porous defense.
There's no arguing with that latter factor. After holding the Rockets to sub-40-percent shooting in the first two games of the series, the Jazz allowed them to shoot 58.7 percent in Game 3. They lost Eddie Johnson on the perimeter to the tune of 31 points, but Jazz coaches say the problem started in the paint.
"It all starts defensively, with your being prepared to take on (Hakeem) Olajuwon," said Jazz assistant coach Gordon Chiesa.
When the Utah big guys allowed Houston's big men to set up too deep in the paint, it meant that a teammate coming to double-team had to come farther, which in turn meant that it took longer to get back out to cover an outside shooter.
"We let them do what they wanted to do," said Jazz forward Bryon Russell. "We weren't putting a body on them. We beat ourselves."
"They were a lot tougher than we were," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan. "If you don't run the floor and execute, you're not going to beat anybody."
The Jazz big guys also took heat for not posing any defensive problems for Houston center Hakeem Olajuwon. When he'd come out high to double-team Jazz point guard John Stockton on the pick-and-roll, Olajuwon's man should have broken for the basket, to make him pay for that tactic. More often than not, the Jazz center stayed out on the perimeter.
"When you stand out there and hold his hand, you don't put any pressure on him," Malone noted.
While criticizing themselves, though, the Jazz also seemed to display an undercurrent of irritation at the Rockets. Johnson and Kevin Willis spent most of the second half of Game 3 strutting and glaring at the Jazz bench, and Johnson spoke boldly after the game about taking it personally that Utah didn't seem interested in guarding him.
"As a shooter, you have to be insulted by that," Johnson said. "I had to make them pay."
Chiesa said the Jazz need to respond to all that with more intensity.
"In the playoffs, you can't just play hard, you have to play with a rage," he said.
Malone said the thing he's looking forward to most about today's game is how involved he'll be in the Jazz's offense. The league's MVP had his best percentage-shooting game of the series in Game 3, making nine of 14 shots, and his fallaway jumper was dropping, so you'd think his number would have been called more. But he shot the ball fewer times than in Games 1 and 2.
"I would have loved to have gotten more (shots)," Malone said. "I'm not complaining about it. But would I have liked more? Absolutely. Will I be curious to see what happens Sunday? Absolutely. It's the playoffs now. You can rest me in the summer."
Asked if he'd talked to the coaches about his lack of shots, Malone said, "No, I'm not like that. They're the coaches."
When Sloan was told of Malone's comments, he said, "That's why they have rebounding. If you want it that bad, go and get it."
One issue the Rockets tried to downplay after Game 3 was that of illegal picks set by the Jazz guards.
"I didn't see many moving picks tonight," Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich said.
It wasn't just a case of his not caring because his team won, either. The Jazz acknowledged that they didn't call many plays where Stockton and Jeff Hornacek were required to set screens in the paint.
Sloan said he didn't shy away from those plays because he was worried about Rockets' protests, but because they tried early and didn't work.
"The couple times we ran them we didn't screen anybody," he said.
Sloan said he wasn't surprised that the Rockets played better in Houston. In fact, he expects the same today.
"They'll get better and better playing against us, and hopefully we won't get any worse," he said.
Tomjanovich acknowledged, however, that the heat is still on the Rockets.
"We're still in the pressure-cooker," he said. "We have to win another one here, then find a way to win in Salt Lake."