Foul Olden Polynice.
Dallas Mavericks guard Damon Jones accepted his lone assignment in Monday's victory over the Jazz, and he succeeded with it, too. Afterward, though, Jones acted rather embarrassed that that was his sole role in the game.Imagine how Polynice must have felt.
Embarrassed isn't the word.
But rather than pout or cry that Dallas coach Don Nelson was playing cheap by telling Jones to foul on purpose, the Jazz center took the indignity like a man.
"What frustrated me," he said, "was that I didn't make a damn free throw because I wanted to stick it to them."
Polynice, who entered the game hitting a miserable .263 (15-of-57) from the line this season, actually missed both free throws the first time Jones fouled him, then made one of the two that came after Jones blatantly fouled him again.
Before Jones could hack him a third time, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan called a timeout. Nelson had accomplished what he wanted: It was still the third quarter, but Polynice was yanked from the game; moreover, the Mavs spoiled Jazz possessions.
"That," Sloan said afterward, "should tell you how important free throws are -- that you have to call a timeout to get a guy out."
No one knows better than Polynice, who has missed 11-of-13 from the line over his past two games.
"I'm hearing everybody tell me what I need to do to improve," Polynice said. "I just have to block all that out and figure it out for myself."
That's because Polynice knows that if he does not, he is no good to the Jazz at the end of games -- primarily because he'll find himself sitting on the bench.
"I'm killing myself," he said, "as far as minutes."
CUTTING IT CLOSE: On the other end of the spectrum is Jeff Hornacek.
Eyes around the league this season have been following the Jazz guard's pursuit of the NBA single-season free-throw shooting record, and two of them belong to record-holder Calvin Murphy.
"Naturally, I'd like to see that record stand forever, even though records are made to be broken," Murphy, now a broadcaster for the Houston Rockets, recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. "But if anybody was to break it, I couldn't think of a better person to do it than Jeff. He's one of those old-school guys who comes to play every game."
Hornacek, who is retiring after this season, continues to lead the NBA in shooting from the line, but his pursuit of Murphy's 1980-81 season record took a hit with a miss against the Mavericks on Monday.
Before the Dallas game, Hornacek needed to make five straight to surpass Murphy's .958 clip. With the miss, he fell from .957 to .952. To go ahead of Murphy now, Hornacek must make his next 26 in a row.
With an average of 2.52 attempts per game this season, Hornacek is on pace to shoot 32 more free throws before he plays his final regular-season NBA game.
ALUMNI UPDATE: Point guard Troy Hudson, who had a brief eight-game stay with the Jazz a couple of seasons back, made an unexpected and rather unceremonious exit from his latest NBA team.
Despite putting up decent numbers this season, Hudson was waived Monday by the cellar-dwelling Los Angeles Clippers. The move sat none too well with one of Hudson's Clipper teammates, Tyrone Nesby.
"It's like losing a brother, and I don't think it's right," Nesby told the Los Angeles Times. "Troy plays hard every day. Last year everybody loved him, and this year you waive him. It doesn't make any sense."
Interim Clippers coach Jim Todd denied the move was personal and said it was necessitated by the injured team's need to add a big man. The Clippers did sign big guy Etdrick Bohannon to a 10-day contract to fill a front-line void, but there really is more to it than that.
Hudson and Todd reportedly had a blowup about a month ago, and he finally got the boot because of it.
SNOOPING IN BEANTOWN: Kevin O'Connor, the Jazz's vice president of basketball operations, spent the past couple of days in Boston where he watched the nation's top prep players practice for Wednesday's ESPN-televised McDonald's All-American High School Game at the FleetCenter. Up to six prepsters are reportedly considering making themselves available for this year's NBA draft.
AND FINALLY: How bad have things been in Dallas? After the Mavs beat the Jazz on Monday, ex-BYU center Shawn Bradley told the Dallas Morning News that the victory was "the best win of my career."
Wow.