Utah Jazz: Sloan seeking more teamwork from Jazz

He might feel differently if he coached Kobe Bryant, but Jerry Sloan has seen about enough of Utah Jazz players trying to make things happen on their own during this second-round series.

After watching his team lose twice to the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center — and suffering through game tape in the aftermath of the losses — the veteran coach wants his squad to start playing like a team on offense as the Western Conference semifinals head to Salt Lake City for games 3 and 4.

Sloan didn't name names, but he says several guys are guilty of abandoning the Jazz's game plan that includes a lot more pick-and-roll, solid screens, passes to cutters and inside work than pick-up-game-like individual play.

"When you don't believe in the offense, and you start dropping your head and start to go one-on-one, you don't have any offense. The other four guys are standing there watching you," Sloan said Thursday at the Zions Bank Basketball Center. "We like to get production out of everybody. It's important to try to get all of our players to play as well as they can, but we have to play as a team."

Sloan expects his players to work their way out of slumps and through the Lakers' defense that has stifled them at times with quickness and length.

"They're defending the devil out of us," Sloan said. "But the way we walk through our stuff the first two games to start the game, there's no way we can defend the other end of the floor the way we run our offense, because we're settling for outside shots and not getting the ball inside (and) not working hard enough."

Sloan said the Jazz need stop taking such quick and tough shots and rely on the inside game that got them this far.

"Why run a play if we're going to go one-on-one? I'll isolate you and let you play one-on-one all day," Sloan added. "That didn't happen to just one guy. That happened (multiple) times. We're not a one-on-one team. ... That's why we have to play as a team, because we can't do it by ourself."

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