Jazz 91, Spurs 85
It wasn't the seventh game of a Western Conference finals series. It wasn't even a playoff game. Shoot, it was merely the seventh game . . . of the regular season.The seventh game of a nearly six-month, 82-game, longer-than-Pinocchio's-nose NBA season that won't end until the weather is back to being much like it was Monday around Salt Lake City: about 70 degrees, sunny and not a hint of the snow that has yet to make to make golf greens white or ski slopes slippery.
But what a big seventh-game win the Jazz's 91-85 victory over San Antonio was for a team whose last three postseason have ended after six: Six games, that is, in the 1997 and '98 NBA Finals, and six games in their '99 conference semifinal series with Portland.
"We needed a win like this," Karl Malone said after the Jazz, off to a disappointing 3-3 start and fresh from an embarrassing display in Sacramento, handily took care of business against the defending NBA-champion Spurs. "It's just one game, but if we ever needed a win, we needed it really bad."
The Jazz played like it, too, for most of 48 minutes in front of 19,584 on Monday night at the Delta Center.
"I thought that was a heckuva win for us," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan. "To beat this team is something we can try to build on a little bit because we played hard."
And that was hardly the case Friday night in Sacramento, where the Jazz were handed a 105-92 loss by the Kings that left them uncertain as to which side of even they really deserved to be. After seeing the way they played Monday, though, Malone was absolutely, positively convinced the Jazz deserves better than to be dubbed a sub .500 club.
"We're not a .500 team," he said. "That's my opinion, and that's what I feel. We're a better team than .500."
How much so remains to be seen.
All Sloan knows that he needs to see more of what he saw Monday, and less of Friday, if the Jazz really are to be considered contenders.
"Win or lose it, you have to get yourself in the mode of trying to play better," he said. "When we don't put the effort out, we aren't even going to look average."
Sloan felt he got what he needed from the Jazz against the Spurs, which is to say an effort replete with passion and emotion.
"That's something we've been lacking," he said.
"You have to have some toughness and emotion somewhere down the line. That picks everybody up."
The pick-me-up Monday came primarily from Jazz point guard John Stockton, who took the game into his own hands after a first quarter in which Malone started 2-of-9 from the field and shooting guard Jeff Hornacek wasn't faring much better at 2-for-6.
Stockton finished with a season-high 20 points, matching Malone for team-high scoring honors on a night the Jazz spread out their scoring. Bryon Russell added 19, Howard Eisley had 13 and Hornacek 10, all of which was plenty to counter Tim Duncan's game-high 32.
Eight of Stockton's 20 came during the second quarter, a period in which the Jazz outscored the Spurs 25-19 to go from 7 down after the first to just 1 down at the half.
But he didn't stop there.
After Hornacek hit a pair of free throws to give the Jazz the lead at 54-53 -- their first advantage since 2-0 -- Stockton grabbed a rebound and hit a short, open jumper to spark a 10-run that would eventually put the Jazz up 62-55. That stretch also included a driving layup by Stockton, plus a long pass to Malone for one of the same.
And then there was the fourth quarter, in which Stockton scored eight more and Malone added seven as the Jazz outscored the Spurs 20-15. San Antonio actually went ahead 71-71 after a fastbreak layup by Terry Porter early in the final stanza, but Stockton answered 16 seconds later with a 24-foot 3-pointer that put the Jazz ahead to stay.
"I don't know how many times I've seen him do that," Sloan said of Stockton, who also found himself open for plenty of pick-and-roll shots because the Spurs were not coming out to defend him. "When things are tough, he steps up and competes."
Which is all, really, Sloan is asking of everyone.
It is the least, he suggested, that honest, hard-working ticket buyers deserve.
"Even if you lose, they want to see you digging and scratching," Sloan said. "I think that's where you gain respect."
And it is also the source of more victories than losses, something the Jazz could ill-afford after falling to the Los Angeles Lakers, Seattle and Sacramento early in the season.
"I think we played with a lot of emotion," said Jazz center Greg Ostertag, who pulled down 11 rebounds -- his second straight game in double-figures on the boards.
"I think everybody on the team knows that was a big game for us, and we (came) out and played like we wanted it."
Based on a postgame reaction from the Spurs, they succeeded.
"They worked harder than us, and they (deserved) to win," San Antonio guard Avery Johnson said. "They're a championship-caliber team. We are too, but they won."
And the Jazz deserved to, too.
"We have to give the Jazz credit," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "They played a great game from the beginning to the end. They wanted it badly, and they showed it. They used a lot of energy, and went to the boards hard."
"Now we have to settle down," Ostertag said, "and play like that every night."
Or at least much more often than not.
It is, after all, a long season. And we should all know how many, or few, games the Jazz have played.
"I don't think it established anything," Hornacek said. "It's game seven."
Of a long season.