By rights, Monday night's game ball should have gone to John Stockton.

It was, after all, his night. And the stars were aligned.

They stood in a row, Karl Malone flanked by Mark Eaton flanked by Thurl Bailey flanked by Jeff Hornacek flanked by, go figure, Adrian Dantley — all there to watch as Stockton's retired No. 12, old Jazz note style, was unveiled from the Delta Center rafters.

Instead, the ball in question left Gordan Giricek's hands as the buzzer was about to expire and missed its mark.

New Orleans had beaten Utah 76-75, and the Hornets had other ideas in mind for something that otherwise might have been presented to 19-season Jazz point guard and NBA all-time steals and assists leader Stockton.

"It's Byron's night," Hornets guard Darrell Armstrong of the Hornets said with first-season New Orleans coach Byron Scott in mind.

"Just having fun, grabbing the ball, man," Armstrong added. "This belongs to the Hornets. David West was about to throw it, or slam it. I told him, 'Hey, hold that ball. Hold that ball. We'll give that to coach right there.' "

And why not?

The win was the season's first for the 1-8 Hornets. They did it without injured All-Star Baron Davis. And they did it on a night the 7-4 Jazz did themselves no favors.

"It was a tough game, and we made it tough for ourselves to play," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. "We never could get into any kind of rhythm.

"We couldn't get anything going inside," he added after watching the Hornets win the paint fight 30-26, "because they stroked us and got after us a little bit."

The Jazz were down by 15 before a longer-than-usual halftime break that allowed ex-Jazz coach and general manager Frank Layden to say a few kind words about Stockton.

"Let's hope," said Layden, perhaps foreshadowing Stockton's far-in-the-future return to Utah in a coaching capacity, "that some day you come back here to us."

After that and an understated "We love you" from Jazz owner Larry H. Miller, the Jazz got back to business.

"Second half," Jazz All-Star Andrei Kirilenko said, "we want to get back to the game and show some respect for John."

New Orleans went up by as many as 19 early in the third quarter, but center Mehmet Okur gave Utah its first lead of the game by knocking down a 22-footer that made it 73-72 with 1:59 remaining.

After Giricek's baseline floater pulled the Jazz to within one at 76-75 with 32.3 seconds left, Armstrong missed a 20-footer and the Jazz wound up with multiple late-game chances.

With 4.4 seconds left, though, Kirilenko missed both free throws. The Jazz retained possession and called timeout with 2.7 seconds to go to set up one last shot, but this time Giricek's pump-fake jumper from about 18 feet went awry.

---

E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com