"But he's been around a long time, seen a lot of things," Sloan added of Weiss, a longtime Seattle assistant who previously was head coach of San Antonio, Atlanta and the Los Angeles Clippers. "He's been fired before, (but) I don't think he's every gotten a fair chance to coach basketball for a long period of time. That's my opinion. Obviously I'm biased because he was a teammate of mine, and you're always a teammate."

RUSSIAN ROULETTE: Lakers coach Phil Jackson's take on Andrei Kirilenko amazing game Tuesday featuring 14 points, nine assists, eight rebounds, seven blocks and six steals?

"He was playing Ping-Pong out there — volleyball, or something. I thought he was playing the wrong sport for a while," said Jackson, who seemed to fault his own players for Kirilenko's success more than he was willing to actually credit Kirilenko for his many blocks, boards and steals. "It looked like our guys were setting him up for (spikes). Some of the guys were just putting it up there on a tee or something.

"I don't know what they were doing," Jackson added. "We tried to stop the game and give them some help, but they didn't have the concept."

TWO F'S IN SNIFFLES: Jazz center Greg Ostertag did not practice Wednesday due to what the Jazz were calling "a head cold," but Ostertag is expected to be available Friday in Memphis.

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com