The possibility of putting a move on Portland for the second seed in the West. An opportunity to see San Antonio fall farther behind in the Midwest Division's rearview mirror. The chance to slide into the playoffs on one heckuva roll.
Yeah, you could say there was just a little bit at stake.And how did the Jazz treat it? Ho-hum, just another game, one in 82 you have to get through before the real fun begins.
Or so it seemed early on in Portland's 90-86 victory over Utah Monday night at the sold-out Delta Center, a loss that virtually assures the Jazz will not overtake the Trail Blazers for homecourt advantage in the event of a second-round playoff meeting between the two.
"We just played bad," Jazz center Greg Ostertag said, "and they took advantage of that."
Inexplicable as the reality of it is, even Ostertag's coach had to agree with the assessment.
"They just outworked us. They just outplayed us," said Jerry Sloan, whose Jazz trailed 45-36 at the half and found themselves down by as many as 16 (54-38) early in the third quarter. "They got to loose balls, and they seemed to want the game a little bit more than we did."
How they could is tough to figure.
After Saturday the Jazz were just 2 1/2 games behind the Blazers in the fight for second, and with wins against Houston on Sunday and Portland on Monday, they could have cut it to just one.
Instead, after losing to both the Rockets and Blazers, Utah (52-25) is now four behind Portland (56-21) with five games to go in its regular season. Moreover, the Spurs moved from 3 1/2 to just three games behind the Jazz in the division race, that includes a head-to-head meeting on Saturday night in San Antonio.
"We played (against Portland) kind of like in the Houston game," Ostertag said. "The effort just wasn't there, especially in the first half."
The Jazz did mount a rather impressive rally, going from down 16 to one up when Karl Malone, who finished with a game-high 29 points and game-high 14 rebounds, hit a jumper to make it 73-72 with 4:52 to go.
A minute-and-a-half later, Howard Eisley made a jumper of his own to match the Jazz's biggest lead of the game -- two points. But with the Blazers shooting 10-of-10 from the free-throw line in the final 3:10, including 4-of-4 from Steve Smith, who also hit one of Portland's two 3-pointers in the final minute, it was only a matter of time before the Jazz would realize what they had squandered.
"We had opportunity," Malone said. "We just didn't take advantage of it."
Smith and teammate Brian Grant both scored 16, part of a balanced Blazers offense that had five scorers in double figures. It didn't help that Utah shot 31-of-41 from the line, just one of several flaws from a Jazz team that, on this night, displayed many.
"We tried to double-team a couple of guys, but we were about a half-an-hour late getting there," Sloan said, "and whenever you're not quick enough to get there and do it the right way, you're not going to have much of a chance to stop them.
"Our free-throw shooting left a little bit to be desired," added Sloan, whose worn-down club was playing its fourth game in five nights. "We had a lot of things that were left to be desired."
Pick your poison: Jazz shooting guard Jeff Hornacek, playing for the first time since sitting out two games to rest his surgically repaired but still-sore left knee, went scoreless on 0-for-4 shooting in 21 minutes; the Jazz shot just 29.4-percent from 3-point range, including 2-of-7 by Bryon Russell, who nevertheless scored 18; Utah was outscored 34-16 in the paint, the result of relying way too much on outside shots that just weren't falling.
"We didn't make shots," Jazz center Olden Polynice said. "It's about as logical as that. If you're not running your offense and getting good shots, that's exactly what's going to happen all of the time."
Against the Blazers, who beat the Jazz in the second round of last season's Western Conference playoffs, that just doesn't cut it.
"When we're playing against a team that's not as good defensively, we can get away with it," said Sloan, who was clearly displeased with the Jazz's effort. "But when you play against a good team that is really good defensively, it's the little things that are going to give you a chance to win. I don't know that we got any little things."
They did, as a result, get a rather big loss to a team which, if the Jazz play well enough to advance of out of the first round, they could see again come playoff time. It's a team that has won 3-of-4 against the Jazz this season, and one that Utah must play much better against if it is to have any hope of hanging.
"They don't have anybody scoring over (17) points a game," Ostertag said, "but they have five or six guys scoring in double figures. That's a pretty good team."
And that's a pretty good assessment.
NOTES: The Jazz announced Monday they will not raise any of their ticket prices for the 2000-2001 season . . . Jazz guard Jeff Hornacek went scoreless for the first time this season.