'Selfish' Jazz fall to the Bucks

MILWAUKEE — The Jazz were at the tail end of a four-game trip, having spent the week walking the River Walk in San Antonio, stutter-stepping around the French Quarter in New Orleans and beating the biting chill coming off the Mississippi in Minneapolis.

A few were grumpy, and tempers seemed short, even with a six-game homestand on the near horizon.

Maybe that had something to do with why the Milwaukee Bucks beat the 5-5 Jazz 100-95 Saturday night at the Bradley Center.

Or . . . maybe not.

"That should sell real well," Jerry Sloan scoffed. "People will buy that."

Not Sloan, though.

Instead, the Jazz head coach pointed to the beginning — and the end. First, the end.

Utah rallied from eight down at the start of the fourth quarter to make it a one-point game — 77-76 Bucks — when backup point guard Raul Lopez hit a running jumper with eight minutes and 10 seconds to go.

Desmond Mason answered with a driving layup, though, and that sent Milwaukee on a 13-0 run that made all the difference.

The Jazz's woes at the end, though, were only a reflection of what had started much earlier.

On a night when Utah committed a whopping 23 turnovers, Sloan saw a lack of commitment to execution from the start — just one evening after the Jazz executed so well in their only road win of the season, a victory at Minnesota.

"We started the ballgame off, we don't have any direction whatsoever. There's no direction," Sloan said. "Our guys just came out and shot the ball. I mean, it's very obvious we were gonna play selfish.

"Everybody had to get their shots and score — because they write more about you when you score than they do if you pass the ball and try to help each other play the game," he added. "That just seems to be the way it is. If you score points, then that's more important than playing as a team."

For that, the Jazz coach seemed to single out both starting point guard Carlos Arroyo, who scored a career-high 30 points against the Timberwolves, and starting small forward Andrei Kirilenko, who had 11 in Minny.

"In order to start the ballgame off," Sloan said, "we've got to get everybody involved, instead of just (taking) shots. I think Andrei started off, Carlos started off . . . they just pulled up and shot the ball."