Jazz hoping to buck odds of series finale

HOUSTON — The Jazz have lost six straight road playoff games dating to 2003, their longest away-from-home postseason futility streak in franchise history.

They've lost 17 of their last 18 outings on the road in the playoffs as well.

The Jazz have these tidbits to ponder, too, as they prepare for tonight's deciding Game 7 in their first-round NBA 4-5 seed Western Conference postseason series with the Houston Rockets:

• Heading into this year's postseason, the home team has won 262 of the 348 best-of-seven series in NBA history — a .753 clip; moreover, the team that won Game 1, as Houston has, won 273 of the 348 aforementioned series

• In 96 all-time Game 7s, the road team has won just 18 times; additionally, every time both teams have held court to force a Game 7, 20 series in all, the road club has emerged victorious only twice

• Only 11 times has a team come back after being behind 2-0, as Utah — which never has won a Game 7 on the road, losing its only two — started this series.

The facts are what they are. Reality is what it is.

And the Jazz, who evened things at 3-3 with Thursday's Game 6 victory, could not care less about any of it.

"We're not going to think about it like that," point guard Deron Williams said. "We're not going to think like you think. We're gonna think like we're going in there and winning."

They will for the sake of a franchise that has not been to the second round of the playoffs since 2000, back when Karl Malone and John Stockton still were All-Stars, when Jeff Hornacek was still knocking down 3s, when Andrei Kirilenko was still a teenager playing at home in Russia, back when rookie Ronnie Brewer was still only thinking about following his father to the University of Arkansas.

"For us to be where we want to be in the future — whether that's the immediate future, or in a couple of years — we're going to have to win a game on the road," power forward Carlos Boozer said.

"That's what we need to focus on: the opportunity we have to grow up before our own eyes and step into a bigger stage of the playoffs," added veteran guard and three-time NBA title winner Derek Fisher, looking ahead to a potential second-round series against Golden State that would start Monday night at EnergySolutions Arena. "Like I've said before, this was not just about making it to the playoffs — this was about advancing and succeeding, and we have an opportunity with one game to do it."

So, the Jazz seem to figure, no better time than now.