Close, but no win

By the end of the fourth quarter, all-star Andrei Kirilenko and the rest of the Jazz had drained their hearts.

A few more beats, however, would have helped in overtime.

The Jazz rallied from 13 points down with just less than six minutes remaining in regulation Monday night to force a five-minute extra session at the Delta Center, only to fall 102-99 to the New York Knicks for their fourth loss in five games.

Kirilenko had a chance to force a second overtime after scoring a team-high 25 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the field, but his 3-point attempt with 3.9 seconds left missed the mark.

"I don't think I did a good job at the end of the game," said Kirilenko, who missed two trey tries and two free-throws attempts in the final 3:16 of overtime.

The Jazz were down 88-75 in the fourth when the comeback bid began, sparked by Kirilenko's fast-break dunk and aided by the fact the Knicks missed seven of eight free throws over the last 3:38 of the final full quarter.

By the time Nazr Mohammed missed two freebies and Kirilenko pulled down the rebound of the second, just 2.5 seconds remained in the fourth and Utah was within two at 91-89.

Kirilenko in-bounded to Gordan Giricek for one last shot, and Giricek was fouled by Knicks rookie Trevor Ariza.

Giricek went calmly to the line and sank both of his free throws with just 0.2 to go, forcing the overtime.

"That was one of those ball games I thought we were going to win," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, whose 16-32 club is back at it tonight in Denver to close the second half of a back-to-back set.

"We got out of it and kind of lost our concentration for a little bit," he added, "and then we fought back and got back into the ball game to give ourselves a chance."

Capitalizing on that opportunity, however, was another matter.

"Then we made some mistakes," Sloan said, "and those kinds of things have been hurting us.

"I thought our guys played hard. I thought they were trying hard, for the most part," he added. "We just seem to get to the point, at times, where we freeze up. We have to get over that part. We have to grow up and accept responsibility (for) making plays, making our free throws — and give ourselves a chance to win a ball game."