O'Neal — guarded at various times by everyone from power forwards Boozer and Millsap to scoreless replacement-starter Jarron Collins — also had only one rebound in 32 minutes.

Collins, Sloan said, deserved "a pat on the back ... because he tried to make Shaquille work as hard as he could every possession down the floor."

O'Neal has had just two no-rebound games in his career, one when he logged only two minutes, and just one other one-board night, back in 1999 when the now-Memphis Grizzlies played in Vancouver.

"It was one of those games where I knew they were gonna flop," O'Neal said. "I had two quick fouls, so I went to my finesse game."

And the Jazz, who tallied a season-high number of points, just stuck with their yeoman's game — which had abandoned them on a 1-4 trip last week that included losses at New York, Washington, Charlotte and Cleveland.

"If we would have played this hard out on the road," Sloan said, "we would have won a couple more games."

Millsap called it "the best basketball we've played all year."

"We really are night and day," Boozer said of team that is 5-0 at home this season.

"But hopefully we can get it going," he added, "because we don't want to have a (sub-.500) road season like we had last season."

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com