Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan wasn't seeing any emotion from his team until the fourth quarter, when Jason Hart and Gordan Giricek combined with Paul Millsap and Matt Harpring to get the Jazz back into the game, a comeback that ultimately fell short, 97-89 to the Portland Trail Blazers at EnergySolutions Arena Tuesday night.

After the game, Giricek, normally a quiet man off the court, still had some of that fire burning in him, a fire that helped buy him nearly 16 minutes of playing time, his first minutes since getting seven at Sacramento a week earlier and the most he's played since Nov. 3.

He had just played some pretty decent defense against Portland's Brandon Roy.

"He's a tough assignment for anybody," said Sloan. "Yeah, (Giricek) got up and played him, he got up in where he was close enough to touch him once in a while. I was glad to see that. He has that kind of ability."

That's what Giricek has maintained since he joined the Jazz more than three seasons ago, but he has read so many stories and heard so many comments about him not playing well defensively that he was ready to explode about it Tuesday night, even when complimented for how he had played Roy, he heard only a negative thought.

"I'm sick of treating me like — your question right now, you're surprised I play defense? I'm sick of hearing any more, 'Giricek doesn't play defense.'

"You said I was play good on Roy. That's like (you were surprised that I did).

"I don't want to hear it no more because I was in Europe best defensive player. I always guard the best. And now I'm in NBA, from the first year of my career, I was guarding the best players on the team, so I'm sick of listening any more that I am not playing defense because that's not true.

"I read all the newspapers and stuff, and I see what people say, and it's stupid perception.

"Yeah, I did a good job. It's not surprise for me. I did a good job. I do my best all the time every time I play," Giricek said.

That off his chest, he was back to normal, seeing the bright side, even amid a four-game Jazz losing streak that has left them 13-9 and with a game at 16-6 Phoenix tonight at 8:30 MST.

"After rainy day always comes sun, so it's going to come sun for us also," Giricek said. "NBA luckily you play day to day, and you always have a chance to end the streak. So we're going to try to do that in Phoenix."

Roy scored nine points in the fourth quarter Tuesday, but Sloan said it wasn't all Giricek's doing because Utah's help defense is ragged.

Utah closed within four of the Blazers a couple times, but when Giricek was called for fouling Roy on a 3-point shot, and Roy made all three free throws, it helped Portland maintain its lead, even though defensive contact was the kind of thing Sloan wanted to see from his players.

"I just stepped close to him," Giricek said. "The ref called the foul, and I can't argue. I told him I just stepped by him. He flopped. But if the ref thinks that it's a foul, it's a foul. I got my hand in the air, right? So it's a foul. If he called it, it is."

Sloan's first thought for leaving Giricek in so long was that he was finding the seams in Portland's zone defense that had the Jazz confused. "So we put 'Giri' out there, and I thought he played pretty well. He played against the zone a lot better. He found open spots against the zone," the coach said.