Utah Jazz guard Gordan Giricek got a season-high 30 minutes and 34 seconds of playing time Saturday night in the EnergySolutions Arena to finish off a pretty decent week for himself.
The best thing, he said, was that he was in the game at the end. The Jazz had to turn away a third- and fourth-quarter run by Portland that cut a 24-point Utah lead to seven before the Jazz finished with a 96-86 victory.
Giricek, in fact, played the whole fourth quarter while starting two-guard Derek Fisher sat on the bench for the final 12:02 of the game.
"Well, that's not up to me," said Giricek, who went five games without playing, then had a good 23 minutes last Tuesday against the Los Angeles Clippers at home and nearly 19 minutes in the Jazz's awful loss at San Antonio Thursday. "Fisher tries also to play hard. Coach (Jerry Sloan) is the one that is going to make those decisions," he added softly.
"It is hard for me to say things about me that I think other people should say. I just know I am feeling more confidence the more minutes I get, so I will be fine.
"I am happy that today I finished the game, like the game against Clippers—to do that, to help the team in any way possible — whatever coach says."
Giricek has averaged 15:18 minutes a game this season, including Saturday's 30 minutes. Fisher, who played 17 1/2 minutes Saturday, averages 24 1/2.
Sloan explained that he used Giricek so much down the stretch because he felt like he had the size to play Portland's impressive rookie, Brandon Roy, a 6-foot-6 shooting guard. Fisher is 6-1; Giricek 6-6.
Giricek did seem to move his feet well, slide well and stay in front of Roy several times. Roy finished with 17 points, the only other double-figure Trail Blazer after Zach Randolph's 34. But he had only three points in the fourth period after seven in the third.
"My legs are getting back, not 100 percent yet," Giricek said. He's been in and out with Achilles problems and the five-game stretch with no playing time. "I know I can be way faster."
"I thought he had some moments where he played pretty well," Sloan said of Giricek. "I thought he had some moments where he struggled. But I felt like he was a little bit bigger guard to try to guard Roy coming down the stretch, and so I left him out there a little bit. He hasn't been in that situation very much."
While Giricek was getting fourth-quarter minutes, rookie Paul Millsap made a splash in the second quarter with perfect shooting for 11 points plus five rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot in 12 minutes. Then he got only another 2:13.
"That's what I'm used for," said Millsap. "When I come in the game, I've got to bring energy so my teammates can feed off that.
"I used him in the third quarter," said Sloan, "but that's when they made their run at us. We had a mismatch out there, and I felt like I had to take him out. He had three fouls, and things didn't go as well for him as they did in the first part. So I went back with what I thought was a little bit bigger lineup that I thought we were going to have to have that to finish the game."
Millsap said he understood. "Vets, they're good at finishing the game. Why fix something that ain't broke?" he said.
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