SAN ANTONIO — This story is on the record, and it doesn't spin a very enjoyable tune for the Jazz.
Despite being an impressive 47-23 overall, Utah just hasn't gotten the job done this season, especially lately, against elite NBA Western Conference opponents.
And the Jazz know it.
"We have to play for 48 minutes," guard John Starks said, "and I don't think we have done that against the playoff-contending teams."
Against 50-21 San Antonio, their matchup tonight in a series-concluding faceoff at the Alamodome, the Jazz are 0-3. Besides the Spurs, Utah has a losing record this season against three of the other six Western Conference clubs that appear headed to the playoffs. Moreover, since March 11 the Jazz have dropped their last four meetings with West's best — two games against Portland, one with Sacramento and a 98-90 loss to Dallas three nights ago.
"It's concerning, obviously," guard John Stockton said of Utah's recent inability, with just 12 games to go in its regular season, to beat anyone with postseason plans. "We're getting down to crunch-time here in the playoffs, and those are things we have to be able to do."
Even before they started a stretch of four games in five nights — Dallas on Monday, at Houston on Tuesday, San Antonio tonight and Cleveland at home on Friday — the Jazz were stressing how important it is to alleviate those doubts before heading into the playoffs.
Forward Donyell Marshall discussed "a tough week . . . with some big games, where we can make a run and get our confidence up, and let us know that we can play with these guys, and where we stand."
Instead of doing just that, however, the Jazz so far are still searching for a way to step up to some self-respecting ground.
Utah has just four victories in its last nine outings, all coming against opponents that will watch this season's NBA playoffs from the comfort of the couches: Golden State, the Los Angeles Clippers, Detroit and Washington.
Collectively, those clubs are winning at a no-so-impressive .298 clip.
No wonder Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was so down in the dumps following his team's worst loss of the season, a 109-86 thumping at the hands of a Houston Rockets club that is looking in from the outside of the postseason picture.
"If getting beat by 30 or 40 points is not an eye-opener," said Sloan, whose Jazz trailed the Rockets by 27 at halftime and by as many as 30 in the second half, "then we'll probably get beat again by 30 or 40."
Sloan was probably more disgusted with his second-teamers Tuesday than he was with his stars, 39-year-old Stockton and 37-year-old Karl Malone.
"I'm not getting energy out of young guys," he said. "I mean, I'd like to say that it all falls on John and Karl's shoulders, because everybody looks out there and says, 'Boy, they look old.' . . . (But) nobody goes out there and is fair about it; they never go out there and say, 'Well, those young guys look old.' "
Age issues aside, Sloan is hopeful the whole crew can get it back together in time to continue proving naysayers wrong.
"I think we're probably a little farther along than people expected at the beginning of the year. They've played pretty hard," he said. "But, you know, you can't rest on that. Nobody cares about what you did."
They're only impressed with what you are doing, and can do. And, perhaps more importantly than all of that, against whom you are doing it.
Malone, maybe better than anyone, knows that.
He, though, doesn't fret over the Jazz's record of late. The Mailman acknowledges the slide but focuses instead on what is on the flip side.
"It comes at a terrible time, but ever since I've been here we've had two or three parts of the season like this," Malone said. "But we've always managed to bounce back when everybody's had us written off, and I'm sure that's the case right now."
Conference call
A look at the 47-23 Jazz's not-so-impressive record this season against the rest of the best from the West:
vs. San Antonio: 0-3
vs. Portland: 1-3
vs. Dallas: 1-2
vs. Sacramento: 1-2
vs. L.A. Lakers: 2-1
vs. Phoenix: 2-1
vs. Minnesota: 2-1
TOTAL: 9-13(.409)
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com