Sonic boom — Jazz 'outhustled' in another poor performance at home

Andrei Kirilenko said the Seattle Sonics "were outhustling us, out-rebounding, outworking, outscoring."

He was quite right, and as a result the Delta Center yet again was more of an outhouse than a home.

Seattle beat Utah 106-90 Friday night, marking the fifth loss in the last six outings at the Delta Center for the 8-12 Jazz, who had no one but themselves to blame for what happened this time.

"I don't think we helped each other very well," Kirilenko said after scoring a team-high 17 points.

"Worse than (not) helping each other, we didn't show up," Jazz guard Milt Palacio added. "They did whatever they wanted to do all night. They ran their offense, they got us out of our offense. Guys didn't respond. And when you don't respond you know you're gonna get your butt whipped."

The Jazz stuck with the 9-9 Sonics for a quarter and change, but Seattle went into the break up 11 at 60-49 and led by double digits throughout the second half.

When Utah got to within 10 after a steal and fastbreak layup from rookie point guard Deron Williams, it did appear as if the Jazz might give the Sonics a run for their money.

Instead, Kirilenko missed a running jumper, 26-point game-high scorer Rashard Lewis made a turnaround jumper and the Sonics were off on an 11-2 run that turned a relative abundance of cheers to a smattering of jeers.

Utah never got closer than to within 16 over the final 12 minutes.

"The crowd tried to get us back into it — and we didn't respond," Palacio said. "And that's sad."

Funny thing about it, though, was that the Jazz may have had more cause than the Sonics to be the ones with smiling faces.

Sure, Lewis got his 26 and seven steals to boot, and big man Reggie Evans was a difference-maker with 18 boards as Seattle outrebounded Utah 46-38.

Evans also got the best of Jazz season scoring-leader Mehmet Okur, who had a team-high 24 points when Utah beat Seattle earlier this season. But the big Turk was limited to just 10 on 5-of-9 shooting Friday, marking the Jazz's 10th loss in as many games when he scores 15 or fewer and their ninth loss in 10 games when he takes fewer than 15 shots.

"We did a good job defensively on him," Evans said. "I just wanted to stay in his face, and not give him too much room. All those guys from overseas can shoot, so I wanted him to work for everything."

It worked.