Jazz fined $15,000 for 'ridiculing' Bryant

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Jazz on Friday were fined $15,000 by the NBA because of the recent skit in which a Karl Malone impersonator pretended to beg Jazz owner Larry H. Miller to let him return to Utah.

As part of the mock phone-call parody, which occurred during two timeout breaks in Utah's loss to the Los Angeles Lakers last Saturday, the Malone imitator also made reference to Malone's Laker teammate, Kobe Bryant, who is facing trial in Colorado on a sexual assault charge.

After a voice pretended to say he wanted to re-join the Jazz, for whom Malone played 18 seasons, the call ended with the imitator saying, "I guess it could be worse. I could be Ko . . . "

The Jazz, NBA basketball operations senior vice president Stu Jackson said in a news release issued by the league, were fined for a skit that "ridiculed opposing players."

After Malone, speaking to reporters in L.A., publicly ripped the Jazz for the stunt, particularly the Bryant reference, the franchise on Thursday acknowledged it had apologized to the Laker organization.

Friday, the Jazz had no official comment on the NBA's formal reprimand.

Reports this week out of Los Angeles, by the way, suggested Malone may be out until the Lakers' last 20 games of the season.

Utah's March 8 Delta Center game against L.A. is the first of the Lakers' final 20. If Malone does not play in it, his first game against the Jazz could come March 28 at the Staples Center.

RED BUTTER: Twice in Friday night's win over Memphis, big man Mikki Moore — playing his first Jazz game after signing a 10-day contract — heard several people on the Utah bench yelling "red, red."

Anyone who has ever been to the Delta Center probably knows that is the Jazz's code word to let players know the 24-second clock is winding down, and they better shoot in a hurry.

Moore, though, wasn't sure what it meant.

"On the old team I played on, shot clock was 'butter,' " said Moore, who came from the NBDL and has had four other NBA stops, including New Jersey earlier this season. "Under five seconds, the bench will holler 'butter.' I heard them holler red, but I was thinking, "What was red?"

Besides that mental blunder, though, Moore won nods of approval from his new club.

"I like his game," forward Andrei Kirilenko said.