"It's over with and done with," said Malone, who has no interest in prolonging the agony of the loss or the way it went down, including two failed free throws from Russell before his desperation 3 attempt at the end.

As for whether he had discussed the misses with Russell, Malone said, "I haven't, and I won't."

Instead, the NBA's two-time MVP will try to put the loss behind by focussing on other interests. "It's spring bear hunting now in Alaska," Malone said with a hint toward what may be his early offseason travel plans.

As for the season itself, one that included a 55-27 record and a Midwest Division title that few expected from the aging Jazz, Malone is content as can be considering the early playoff exit.

"I think it was better than a lot of people expected. I don't think anybody seriously said we would have had the year we would have had," he said. "No one gave us a chance to really do much of anything, because of the age and all of that. I think, pretty much, we had a good year.

"We could have won some more games; we didn't. So you just go from there."

Malone probably did not even discuss as much when he met Wednesday with Sloan, who has similar sentiments.

"We didn't talk a helluva lot," Malone said. "You know, (Sloan said), 'Great year; don't work out so much.' I said, 'Yeah, I'll try not to, Coach.' We talked about training camp, and I was excited about that already."

At this point, that is about all to which the Jazz can look forward.

There is little sense of beating oneself up over what was, or was not, though even Sloan finds that difficult.

If only the Jazz had swept Seattle instead of being taken to five games by the Sonics in their best-of-five opening-round series . . .

"We lost the first couple of basketball games (to Portland) because our energy level wasn't quite as high," Sloan said. "If we made a mistake — and I told our players (this) — (it is that) we didn't come away in that third game against Seattle, didn't go there in the same frame of mind, to go finish the job. It cost us two more games to play and energy we might have been able to use (against the Blazers).

"We never got (Portland's) attention to start playing them until after we had lost a couple of games. That's too late in a series like that, with a team that talented. But I think we finally got some respect from them."

That and the regular season accomplishments must suffice for the Jazz this year.

"I'm just asking, 'How many people picked us to win our division?' " Sloan said. "Sure, we didn't win a championship. But you have to be realistic sometimes."

It comes with introspection. It comes the morning after.

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com