Good news for Jazz fans: Karl Malone is peeved.
Anyone who has followed the Mailman's career knows that he's played some of his best stretches of basketball when he's become irritated at something - or someone.The target of Malone's wrath this time is Salt Lake Tribune columnist Gordon Monson, who penned a column under the headline, "Hey, Karl, Isn't It About Time to Deliver?" on Tuesday.
Malone felt the column cast doubt on his gumption.
"That was a stab at my desire and my heart, and I have a big heart," he said.
Ordinarily, such an incident might be easily forgotten, but happening as it did in the midst of the Western Conference Finals, to the league's recently crowned Most Valuable Player, it has been the subject of local talk radio shows, news reports and even a halftime bit on NBC's Wednesday game between Chicago and Miami.
In a KSL-TV interview that aired Wednesday, Malone said, "Yeah, I take it personal. Gordon Monson, some little punk, not man enough to talk to me . . . It wasn't a hurt, it just (ticked) me off . . . It's no respect."
On NBC, Malone said, "It was an isolated incident, but it was one of our writers, with a paper I've been pretty loyal to . . . What am I gonna do? Am I gonna grab this guy and shake him?"
Those comments followed a postgame blast by Malone on Tuesday, during which he said, "Sometimes you guys sell more papers and get more ratings when you say I had a bad game. I try not to get caught up in it . . . but when someone takes a stab at you on the front page of the paper, it kind of (ticks) you off . . . Those kind of guys there I don't have a lot of respect for."
And: "Unfortunately, in this business, you spend a lot of time giving guys what they want mediawise, and then guys take shots. We are athletes, but we are human, and it does hurt."
WHAT A FRIEND: Houston's Charles Barkley, a longtime friend of Malone, saw the same column on Tuesday and came to his friend's defense.
"I think most of these people are (bleeps)," he said, gesturing toward the collected media. "When you're going good they love you, when you're not . . .
"It's unfair that he (Malone) gets all the blame," Barkley continued. "Y'all don't give him all the credit, so it's unfair to give him all the blame."
MORE BARKLEY: More pearls from the mouth of the Chuckster:
- On what makes the Jazz so tough in the Delta Center: "Officiating, because they're going to give them their little cheapie fouls and that's an extra 20 foul shots a game. Officials always lean toward the home team, especially when you have a crowd going crazy like they do here. It puts pressure on officials."
- On what awaits the winner of this series: "The Bulls are the best team. It's going to take a (heckuva) effort to beat them, whoever plays them . . . Any team that plays them in the Finals is going to have to bring it."
- On his defense on Malone in Game 5: "I was happy with the way I played Karl. I took away his right hand, I fouled him maybe two times. I told him he could take the fadeaway jumper all he wants to. If he makes that fadeaway jumper, I'll shake his hand and say, 'Good luck in Chicago.' "
SO SIMPLE: Houston Chronicle writer Michael Murphy offered a six-step method for a Rockets victory over the Jazz in Game 6. Among his better ideas:
- "Get Charles Barkley perhaps as many shots as, say, Matt Maloney." Murphy pointed out that Barkley, one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players, took fewer shots than Maloney and Eddie Johnson, and only one more than Sedale Threatt.
- "How about having Clyde Drexler, Mario Elie and Johnson combine to make maybe one 3-pointer?"
- "Have someone put in a long-distance call to Sam Mitchell and beg him to take that voodoo hex off Kevin Willis." Murphy says that ever since Mitchell and Willis tangled in the first round of the playoffs, the officials have kept their eye on Houston's hatchet man.
MORE CHRONICLE: Houston columnist Ed Fowler wrote: "So far, Malone has turned up at The Summit with nothing but junk mail in his pouch . . . If the competitors of the U.S. Postal Service were to introduce a new commercial based on the Mailman's service in Houston to this point, they'd note that he guarantees neither the date nor the quality of his delivery."
Another Houston columnist, Fran Blinebury, wrote: ". . . for the first time in the series, nobody had to hold a mirror under MVP Malone's nose to see that he was breathing. What we now know is that while neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night can stop the Mailman from his appointed rounds, just one guy with a personal computer asking a few valid questions can make him more pouty and pontificating than ol' Cliff Clavin from `Cheers.' "