A day after taking a rather stinging postgame shot at Denver Nuggets coach Dan Issel on Monday night, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was a bit contrite.
Maybe he shouldn't have said everything he did. Maybe he shouldn't have attracted so much attention in a 109-89 victory over Denver by saying what he did, even if it was Issel who provoked it all to begin with.
One thing for which Sloan won't apologize for, however, is the fact he does get emotional.
It's the way he played. It's the way he coaches. It's the way he is.
His team, however, is quite different than that.
"Businesslike," guard John Stockton calls it.
The balance between the two is one that seems to work.
"Our team, for the most part, has been fairly quiet," Sloan said.
"They've got it all under control," he jokes, "and I don't sometimes."
Actually, though, behind all the ranting, raving and make-a-sailor-proud swearing that he is prone to do from the Jazz bench, Sloan really does have a handle on things.
"I don't feel like I'm totally out of control," he said. "A time or two I get upset, yeah. But I believe in getting involved in the game. Whether I'm right or wrong, I don't know. It's just who I am. I can't change that."
He didn't try to, either, when he became an NBA coach, first with his old club, the Chicago Bulls, and now, since 1988, with the Jazz.
"That was the question that has been asked of me since Day 1: How are you going to coach in this league when you know players are not going to play like you did?" said Sloan, a hustling, fiery sort who took charges and went after loose balls while earning a reputation as one of the NBA's top defensive players when he was with the Bulls.
Sloan's answer: "I said I didn't have the skills and ability that some others players had, and players like that — you can't expect them to play that way. They have to play as to who they are. That's all we've ever asked anybody to do: To try to play as to who they are. I think you can ask them to run hard, you can ask them run the plays, and all the other stuff. But they have to be who they are."
Perhaps that is why the Jazz play as they do — wearing their emotion under their jerseys rather on their on their sleeves.
"He's telling us all the time is: 'Be professionals. Come ready to play, come ready to work, come ready to practice. Whatever we have to do, give me those two hours, or whatever time it is. Get in, get out,' " said veteran center Olden Polynice, who is new to the Jazz this season. "He's preached that: the business attitude.
"But Jerry is Jerry," Polynice added. "That (emotionally) is how Jerry played. See, Jerry's real. He'll tell you what you need to do, but at the same time he's a no-frills kind of guy. I've seen tapes of him: He was always diving on the floor, fighting — that's just how as he was.
"He's not going to be like all these others coaches — you know, say one thing, and do something else next week. Pat Riley, for years, with the Knicks, he wanted them to be all crazy. When he was with the Lakers, it was Showtime. Miami, it's like . . . hang 'em. It's like so many different things. Here . . . (Sloan) keeps it simple. His whole thing is 'As long as you come to work, that's all I ask for.' He does want us to play with a little bit more intensity and emotion, but that's not something you can make guys do."
Polynice is most outwardly emotional player the Jazz has right now, and his personality has come to light more and more as gets more games under his belt and begins to feel more comfortable in his new surroundings. He pumps his fist, waves his arms and flexes his muscles after big plays — something you just don't see from certain Jazz old-timers.
It doesn't seem to bother Sloan, either.
"I've never minded when guys play with emotion,' he said. "I've never said, "No emotion," because I played with a lot of emotion."
Emotion, though, can be a funny thing.
Most guys have it, but a lot don't always show it. Those who do often do it in varying ways.
"Karl (Malone) is emotional, but it's not as demonstrative, as say, myself," Polynice said. "You have to have some kind of emotion to play this game . . . Some guys express it differently, that's all. I've seen Horny (Jeff Hornacek) get a bunch of technical fouls getting mad — that's emotion."
It was emotion, too, when Sloan got his shot in on Issel.
Issel erupted with 50 seconds to go in Jazz's blowout win over the Nuggets. Upset that Malone and Stockton were still in what was once a close game, Issel yelled "I'll remember this." Sloan did not know what Issel was saying, and yelled "What?" as he moved up the sideline toward center court. Sloan then figured it out, and indicated he was trying to get his players to take a foul so he could get them out. Issel's answer: Smooch my rump.
Afterward, Sloan got in this line: "I can't worry about that. If something bothers him, then . . . It bothered me when he quit in the middle of the season." The reference to Issel once having quit as coach as the Nuggets in midseason was harsh and perhaps one Sloan wishes he could take back.
"I've probably been a little bit (emotional) more so than I'd really like to be, after the fact," Sloan said. "I'm not always pleased with some of the things I do after the fact."
Some things, though, just happen. This was one. Why it does not happen more or less often, and why his team tends to show its emotion less than he does, is something Sloan can't figure out. Nor does he necessarily want to.
"I'm not much of a psychologist. I don't look at myself as that," Sloan said. "I just do what I feel. It's more of gut reaction."