For one brief moment it looked like John Stockton was going to put another dagger into the hearts of Houston Rockets fans on Wednesday night.
Eleven months ago to the day in the same arena, Stockton silenced a noisy crowd and sent the Utah Jazz to the NBA Finals with a last-second 3-point bomb. His shot capped a miraculous fourth-quarter rally.And Utah made another fourth-quarter rally on Wednesday night. When Stockton calmly sank a pair of free throws with only 44.3 seconds left, the Jazz had their first lead of the game. The Compaq Center - the arena formerly known as the Summit - was again quieted by the Utah point guard.
This time, however, the Jazz couldn't hang on. Neither Stockton nor his big buddy, Karl Malone, would get the job done. The Rockets made five clutch free throws in the final 38 seconds while the Jazz missed a pair of open 3-pointers, and that was that.
Houston edged closer to a major playoff upset with a 89-85 victory.
The Jazz, owners of the best regular season record in the NBA, now find themselves one loss away from becoming only the second No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 8 in league history. For the Jazz to avoid that ignominious fate, they need to win both Friday night in Houston and Sunday afternoon inthe Delta Center.
"We're just not clicking right now - and it's the wrong time to not be clicking," said Jeff Hornacek.
Malone left the arena without addressing the media. Apparently he was content to let his play do the talking for him. Unfortunately for the Jazz, his play didn't say quite enough this time. He finished with a game-high 14 rebounds and 19 points, which tied him with Bryon Russell for the team high. But he was unusually quiet in the fourth quarter - scoring only four points and taking just three of the Jazz's 18 field-goal attempts.
"Our mission is to play (Malone) tough and not let him get any easy baskets," said Houston forward Kevin Willis.
Mission accomplished. Malone was forced to take difficult shots as his 6-for-16 shooting from the field will attest.
Stockton, who sat out of team practices on Monday and Tuesday with a sore back, wasn't much better. He was 6-for-14 from the field for 15 points. He also turned the ball over five times. Utah's third best player didn't have a good night either. Hornacek made only 2-of-10 shots from the field.
Despite all of the Jazz's "Big 3" having off shooting games, Utah was still in the hunt down the stretch - thanks primarily to Russell. He was 7-of-10 from the field - including three 3-pointers - for 19 points with six boards.
After Stockton's free throws gave the Jazz their one and only lead, 85-84, Houston's Hakeem Olajuwon was fouled with 37.6 seconds left. He made both free throws to give a one-point advantage back to the Rockets.
The Jazz had a shot at taking the lead, but Russell's 3-pointer from the left baseline with 22 seconds left was one of his few misfires. Clyde Drexler rebounded for the Rockets, was quickly fouled and sank both freebies to put Houston back up by three with 18 seconds left.
Utah had a chance to tie, but Malone's open trey at the top of the key with 11 seconds remaining was wide left. Houston's Matt Maloney rebounded, was fouled and made one of two free throws to put the game away.
"Obviously, a tremendously big win," said Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich. "In a short series, Game 3 is gigantic."
The Rockets came away with the victory, but it wasn't as if they did much to deserve it in the final quarter. They led by 13 points midway through the third. They made only one shot from the field in the final 101/2 minutes of the game. They were 3-for-16 shooting as a team in the fourth quarter - 18.8 percent. Yet they still managed to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series.
"The team persevered tonight," is how Drexler, who finished with 22 points and nine boards, put it.
Olajuwon missed six shots in the fourth quarter, but he was still all but unstoppable for the Jazz. Utah starting center Greg Foster picked up two fouls in the opening minute trying to guard him and played just three minutes for the game. Greg Ostertag played reasonably well in trying to defend Olajuwon, but "The Dream" still went off for a game-high 28 points. His big night moved him past Wilt Chamberlain for eighth on the all-time playoff scoring list with 3,632 points.
Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was particularly displeased with his team's play in the first half, when he felt several of his players weren't following the team concept.
"We are not the type of team that can play one-on-one basketball," said Sloan. "We tried to do that in the first half and we turned the ball over, fell down and had a number of things go wrong. If we try to play that way, so help me, we're not going to beat anybody . . . . Houston killed us (during that stretch). They annihilated us. They did what was necessary to win because we played like we'd never played on the same team with each other."
So the Jazz must win on Friday or their 62-victory season will be remembered as the year they blew a golden opportunity - by losing in the first round when they had home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, including the Finals.
"Our guys will be ready to play," Stockton predicted.
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Additional Information
The Series
First Round
Game 1 Rockets 103
Jazz 90
Drexler leads Rockes with 22 points
Game 2 Jazz 105
Rockets 90
Karl Malone leads Jazz with 29 points
Game 3 Rockets 89
Jazz 85
Olajuwon leads Rockets with 28 points
Game 4 Utah at Houston
May 1 Time, TV: 7:30 p.m., TNT, KJZZ
If necessary
Game 5 Houston at Utah
May 3 TV, Time: To be determined