He didn't do it Wednesday, but even after beating the defending NBA-champion San Antonio Spurs last Monday night, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was thinking about altering his starting lineup.
And the changes he considered were not all that different after all.Sloan contemplated a reunion of the Jazz's starting five from a season ago, with center Greg Ostertag and small forward Bryon Russell possibly reassuming their old jobs alongside mainstays Karl Malone, John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek.
"We may end up getting them all back together," Sloan said Tuesday morning while discussing the improved play of Ostertag. "There's still a little bit of confusion."
In other words, veteran center Olden Polynice and rookie small forward Scott Padgett are still trying to master the intricacies of Sloan's rigid halfcourt offense. They haven't always known where they should be. That much was evident in a humbling loss to Sacramento last Friday night and again in the early going against San Antonio.
So, against the Spurs, the Jazz opened the second half with their familiar five: Hornacek, Stockton, Russell, Malone and Ostertag. Sloan dismissed the halftime lineup adjustment after the victory, but the fact remains that it was an out-of-character move for the Jazz not to begin the third quarter with the same five who started the game.
Problems with the changes, and the likely reason things stayed the same for a 98-90 victory over New York Knicks on Wednesday night, are twofold: Polynice, by starting, seems to have taken a lot of pressure off a vastly improved Ostertag, and Russell, by coming off the bench, seems to have picked up some of the sixth-man slack created by sorely missed free agent Shandon Anderson's offseason defection to Houston.
(Boy, is that looking more and more like a bonehead move, or what?)
Anyway, Russell scored 19 against the Spurs and seems to have finally come to terms with his reserve role. And Ostertag, Sloan said, "seems fairly comfortable" with coming off the bench. Still, the temptation has been strong to start those who know Sloan's system best. Russell fits the bill, and so too, finally -- after a few seasons spent figuring things out -- does Ostertag.
"I think he (Ostertag) is playing well because he knows what we're trying to do," Sloan said.
The decision was a tough one, and Sloan suggested he could only go with his gut.
"That's just a guessing game," he said.
What, Sloan's not the proverbial rocket scientist? "No, I'm far from that," he laughed. "Hopefully, you make the right decision. There's no guaranteeing it."
On Wednesday, his gut was right.
HISTORY LESSON: So what did Polynice do to deserve such a warm reception last week in Sacramento?
"I didn't do anything for this organization but bust my butt for 41/2 years," Polynice said.
Certainly there's got to be more to it than that, when entertainment for an evening from almost everyone in the house is built around a near-constant chant of "O.P sucks."
Polynice consented to enlightening the uninitiated with a history lesson:
"I made the comment that it was a gutless organization . . . because they were losing on purpose. And I'm wrong for that?" said Polynice, who accuses Kings management of encouraging the club, while he was playing his last season there, to lose its way into the first-round draft choice with which it selected Jason Williams in 1998. "I just brought it to light that I didn't appreciate it, because my whole thing is just trying to win. I just wanted to be involved with a winning team. And the fact that when (former Kings coach) Eddie Jordan told me they're losing on purpose it was like, 'That's not what we get paid to do. To lose? We don't get paid to lose.' "
GO, JAZZ: Ever wonder what Sloan does when he gets tossed out of a game?
No, he doesn't try to coach from inside his office. No, he doesn't have some sort of secret hookup with assistant coach Phil Johnson, who takes his place. And no, definitely no, he doesn't try to sneak back into the Delta Center wearing some sort of bad Bobby Valentine disguise.
Rather, Sloan simply turns on the TV and plays the part of glorified Jazz fan.
"I just watch the game," he said last week, a day after picking up two technical fouls and getting ejected from the Jazz's game against Portland for arguing calls. "There's nothing I can do about it."
HISTORY LESSON II: So what really got Sloan so riled in Sacramento last Friday -- besides the blowout loss to the Kings.
Well, it wasn't just the fact that a select few Kings fans were cheering while Malone lay flat on his back with what might have been a serious spinal injury (it turned out Malone had felt some numbness in his arms, but it was due to a stinger that passed quickly). And it wasn't the fact that the whole building was doing its "O.P. sucks" while he was down for about five minutes, holding his neck the whole while.
Actually, it had everything to do with the guy a few rows behind the Jazz bench who had the coldness to invoke the name of a deceased Sacramento player while everyone waited to see just how serious Malone's injury was.
"Remember Derek Smith," the fan yelled with reference to the late ex-King out of the University of Louisville, a player who once got his jaw broken after being fouled by Malone.
"You're a great sport," Sloan said loud enough for the insensitive fan to hear. "You ought to feel real good about yourself."
THE ADVOCATE: Malone caught some predictable flak last week from gun violence critics for his support of the NRA, which was expressed in a full-page personal testimonial NRA advertisement appearing in Time magazine. "I'm anti-gun violence, but I think people should be able to own a gun," said Malone, who talks in the ad about how his love for hunting is so strong that it is "about the only thing I'd rather do than play basketball."
WHAT A DEAL: According to a survey released last week by the Chicago-based Team Marketing Report, the average ticket price for Jazz games this season ($46.84) is up $2.23 from last season -- but still $1.53 below the NBA average.
AND FINALLY: The Jazz, who have four new faces in Polynice, Padgett, Pete Chilcutt and Quincy Lewis, went through a period of serious self-examination following their loss at Sacramento.
They figured out that they must learn to trust one another if they are to make anything of this season, a revelation that has paid big dividends in the victories over San Antonio and New York.
"We don't have faith in, if we leave to go get somebody, that someone's going to pick your man up," Hornacek said after the loss to the Kings. "You know, all you need is that one little hesitation, one person on the court to say I don't know if I should quite go because then my man might get a layup or an easy shot. Then you're in trouble . . . You have to have complete faith that if you go to leave, then someone's going to get your man, and that man's got to have faith that someone's going to (cover for) him.
"That's part of what we're lacking right now, and whether that's because we have a lot of new guys, it shouldn't be happening that bad . . . You have to have complete faith in your teammates. You have to have confidence in them that they'll be able to do the little things, make the extra passes, and right now we're not doing that."
That's not all, either. For some reason the Jazz started the season with a different feel compared with the past, and it's not just the fact that they're yet another year older.
"Since I've been here, we've always had an attitude about playing, and an attitude that we take on the court every night. And we've been missing that some nights," said reserve guard Jacque Vaughn, who is starting his third season in Salt Lake City. "We have it in spurts -- whether it's diving for loose balls, taking charges, doing those things for the benefit of the team. We have to get back to doing those things."
Against the Spurs and Knicks, they did.