That, though, is when the Lakers buckled down, as Payton drove, then kicked a pass to wide-open Devean George, who nailed a three-pointer from the right side of the court to put L.A. up 94-92 with 24.9 seconds left.

The Jazz did have one last chance, but — with Sloan sticking with the group that brought Utah back in subs Williams, Handlogten, Sasha Pavlovic, Raja Bell and Jarron Collins — nothing they wanted to do seemed to work.

First, Williams drove the lane — only to have the ball knocked out of bounds with 9.2 seconds to go. Then, rookie Pavlovic tried to in-bounds, only to have the ball knocked back out, losing 0.7 seconds on the clock and leaving just 8.5

Twice more, Pavlovic tried to in-bounds, but could not, calling a timeout each time.

Finally, with no more timeouts remaining for the Jazz, Pavlovic did get the ball in — to Williams, who took a jumper from near the left corner that rimmed out.

"It felt good," Williams said of his shot. "It felt real good, but unfortunately it didn't go in."

Williams' miss bounded back at the top of the key to both Bell and Pavlovic, and Bell emerged with the ball, throwing up a last-second desperation shot that failed to fall as well.

With that, Utah fell to 11-8 overall and 1-7 on the road this season — though not before winning a great deal of respect from the Malone-less Lakers.

"I anticipated that today was going to be a difficult day for us," Jackson said. "All day long I told the team that I was concerned about the game."

NOTES: Bell needed a bandage below his right eye after taking a seemingly unintentional elbow from Bryant in which Bell was called for a defensive foul and Bryant was called for a technical. . . . Ex-Jazz swingman Bryon Russell finished with three points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field in 17 reserve-role minutes for the Lakers. . . . Jazz basketball operations senior vice president Kevin O'Connor watched the game after scouting Saturday's Wooden Classic games involving host UCLA, Kentucky, Stanford and Kansas.

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E-MAIL: tbuckley@desnews.com