1 win, 2 injuries for Jazz

First, Carlos Arroyo went down. Then, with a thud, DeShawn Stevenson crashed.

In a third-quarter span of just 70 seconds, the Jazz's starting backcourt had to be carried off the Delta Center floor — one, point guard Arroyo, with a sprained ankle, the other, shooting guard Stevenson, with a neck injury that necessitated the precautionary use of a backboard.

And just how did the Jazz respond?

"I think we rallied around that," rookie center Curtis Borchardt said.

"From that point on," Borchardt added, "we outplayed them, outhustled them."

Yet the Jazz did so with little emotion, and lots of focus.

Utah, in fact, took care of business acting as if nothing had happened, beating the Milwaukee Bucks 99-90 Friday night to improve to 7-6 overall and 6-1 at home.

Not that they had any other choice.

"There's nothing you can do about it," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said of the injuries.

Sloan is never one to feel sorry for himself or his players, and his club reacted accordingly, going on a 10-0 run to take a 74-68 lead at the end of the third quarter, then holding on against each and every charge by the Bucks in the fourth.

But that's not to say there was not concern.

"I knew (Stevenson) hit the deck pretty hard, and that's something you never want to see with a teammate, especially a guy who was playing really hard and really well for us," said Borchardt, who played 24 second-half minutes, finishing with eight rebounds and a career-high 11 points. "It's just scary, because we're all playing, we're all competing, but you never want to see somebody get seriously hurt like that."

As it turns out, though, Stevenson's injury may not be as bad as initially feared.

"He's responded just fine to all the tests the doctors have given him at this point," Jazz spokesman Dave Allred said later during second-half play.

After being carried out on the backboard, Stevenson was taken for precautionary reasons to University of Utah Medical Center.

He was said to have feeling in all his extremities, though, and Jazz public-address announcer Dan Roberts even told the Delta Center crowd of 18,182 that "he's fine."