The morning after the Jazz opened their 2008-09 NBA season last Wednesday night, Utah coach Jerry Sloan was bemoaning a problem most teams would envy.

A glut, that is, of capable swingmen — and not nearly ample playing time to share.

"There's not enough minutes to give every one of those guys an opportunity to play the amount of minutes they want to play," he said at the time.

Nearly a week later, Sloan's welcome dilemma was compounded.

Blame Paul Millsap for that.

The Jazz's backup power forward had a 24-point, nine-rebound night in an 89-73 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday night.

Fifteen of Millsap's points came consecutively during a fourth-quarter stretch in which the now 3-0 Jazz comfortably separated themselves from a still-winless Clippers club.

He did it with starting power forward and two-time NBA All-Star Carlos Boozer watching from the bench, on an evening in which Millsap would log 32 minutes and Boozer — who had 20/10 games in each of his first two outings of the season — just 29.

He did it, too, by lighting up 12-year veteran forward Tim Thomas — prompting Sloan to ponder how in the world he is going to find sufficient minutes down the road for Millsap as well.

The answer, if Millsap should continue to play like he has to start the season, may be by altering initial plans for the Jazz's regular rotation.

"The substitutions have been kind of a pattern," said Sloan, whose Jazz play host tonight to Portland at EnergySolutions Arena. "But that doesn't mean they have to stay that way."

A warning shot over the bow?

If Millsap's ship keeps sailing like it did in victories both Saturday and Monday over the Clippers, it is indeed.

And it all couldn't come at a more fortuitous time for Millsap, a second-round draft from Louisiana Tech in 2006 who was shrewdly signed to a three-year rookie deal that pays him $797,581 this season — rather paltry by NBA standards.

It's a contract season now for Millsap, who'll become a restricted free agent in the offseason — and who stands to make exponentially more in the future, especially if he finishes the season like he's started it.

Not that he claims to be consumed by any of that, be it minutes or money matters.

"I'm just going to continue to do what I've been doing," said Millsap, who depending on matchups can be used anywhere from small forward to center. "You see (Monday) that that worked for me.

"So I'm going to get out there just continue to work hard, and continue to do the little things that got me where I'm at."