No one in the visitor's locker room at the Staples Center wanted to admit it was on his mind. Coach Jerry Sloan said he didn't really remember it, either.
Yet the fact remains: The Jazz lost by 46 the last time they played the Lakers in Los Angeles.
Little wonder, then, that there was a certain sense of satisfaction for the Jazz on Wednesday night.
Not only did they beat the Lakers 97-92 to go 2-0 early in 2000-2001, but they did it against a team that had their number in 1999-2000. And they did it against the defending NBA champions.
"It was just nice to see how we're going to be able to compete against some of these teams," said Sloan, who prefers to contemplate the present and future rather than dwell on the past. "I thought our guys came out and played hard right from the very beginning."
For all of his gratification, though, Sloan was not completely content. He picked apart the Jazz victory, especially the part in which they got away from doing the things he expects his teams to pride themselves on.
"We broke out of our offense way too soon in the early part of the game," Sloan said.
The coach was bothered by the way the Jazz ran the floor; more precisely, the way they failed to run it the way they should. Certain Jazz players, most notably newcomer Donyell Marshall, didn't get to the spots they should, a transgression that can drive a perfectionist like Sloan batty.
"We had a very difficult time in the early part of the ballgame because everybody ran into the corners," he said. "I haven't done that in the 13, 14 years I've been coaching. . . . Everybody just ran and stood."
Moreover, the Jazz were often guilty of shooting for shooting's sake — and not necessarily because they were taking sensible shots.
"That was the really frustrating part of it," Sloan said of the Jazz's penchant for excessive outside shooting in the opening half. "That's all we looked for. And I thought we were really going to be haunted by it."
As it turned out, the Jazz were not.
"We got shots off. Fortunately some of them went in early," said Sloan, whose team was up by as many 13 at the break. "But that's not the way we play."
With a few friendly halftime reminders, the Jazz got back to doing what they should — and held off a late L.A. rally thanks to some precise offensive execution overseen by old standbys Karl Malone, who scored 26 points, and John Stockton, whose 21 points and 14 assists were fueled by several instances in which he successfully penetrated a Laker defense dominated by omnipresent center Shaquille O'Neal.
"You're not going to get an awful lot of inside shots . . . because they're good defensively," said Sloan, who found that out — as if he didn't know already — when the Jazz lost to the Lakers 113-67 back on Feb. 4 of last season. "They're big, and it's tough to go inside against them.
"(But) when we play with any intelligence — John (Stockton) got a couple of layups (Wednesday). You know, if you're not going to give him the opportunity, then I'll just stand him out there and let him dribble the ball until the 24-second clock runs out — if we aren't going to execute any offense. And he doesn't like to do that.
"Fortunately, we started executing a little better by running the floor a little better, and that gave him an opportunity to keep pressure on by pushing it up the floor," added Sloan, whose club visits Dallas on Saturday night. "Then, when we didn't, we came out and got into our offense, and I thought we executed a couple of plays where we got a couple of decent shots."
And that was enough for a victory that was satisfying indeed, if not because of what happened last February, then certainly for what it represents now.
It's something no one in the Jazz locker room can forget. But it is something they can downplay, which is precisely what Sloan opts to do.
"It's just a win," he said. "That's all you can count it."
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