Jazz notes: Miller, Ostertag put verbal confrontation behind them

Jazz owner Larry H. Miller met with Greg Ostertag prior to Utah's game against San Antonio on Monday and apologized for his part in a recent verbal confrontation that led to the veteran center being suspended without pay for one game by the team.

"I was out of line," Miller said.

"I said (to Ostertag), 'I don't want that kind of relationship with you.' . . . We don't need that from a team standpoint, we don't need that on a personal basis."

Ostertag returned to the Jazz lineup Monday but said little about the matter that led to his sitting out last Saturday's loss at Dallas.

"It's in the past," Ostertag said after the Jazz's morning shootaround. "Don't dwell on the past.

"It's over with," he added. "We got it done, it's over."

Monday night, however, Ostertag addressed Miller's apology.

"It means a lot," he said.

"Everybody's heads were cooler, and cooler heads prevailed," Ostertag added. "He said what he had to say, and I said what I had to say, and we shook hands and it was over."

Miller approached Ostertag as Ostertag headed off the Delta Center floor following pregame warmups Monday, and the two spoke for more than five minutes.

"I think that was big of him to come and do that," Ostertag said. "I think he got caught up in the emotions (last Wednesday) just like everybody else was caught up in it, and . . . it's over now."

Ostertag got into an argument with coach Jerry Sloan that later involved Miller after Utah's loss to Seattle last Wednesday night, then skipped practice Thursday, prompting his team-imposed suspension.

Ostertag and Sloan got into it after Sloan's postgame comments.

"I saw it unfold," Miller said. "By the time I got back there, there was like 12, 15 guys (between Sloan and Ostertag)."

That's when Miller got involved and said something to Ostertag.

Miller on Monday said the matter "escalated so fast" but never grew beyond an exchange of words between the player and coach — typical of Ostertag-Sloan feuds in the past.

The owner's advice to Ostertag's teammates: "When Greg and Jerry get going at it, the best thing they should do is stay out of it, because they (Ostertag and Sloan) seem to talk each other's language."

Ostertag, who had five points and five rebounds in 15 bench minutes Monday, said he did not watch on television as the Jazz lost to the Mavericks.

"I'll take some of the blame for it because I wasn't there," he said of the Dallas game, "but we weren't doing the things defensively we know we're capable of doing."

MILES STILL DOWN: Eighteen-year-old Jazz rookie shooting guard C.J. Miles, still assigned to NBA Development League affiliate Albuquerque, scored 14 points but hit just 3-of-10 from the field in the Thunderbirds' most-recent game, Sunday's win over Fort Worth.

Miles is averaging 12.7 points on 40.2 percent field shooting in nine games since being sent down. The Jazz have said he'll be back in Utah sometime before the mid-February NBA All-Star Game break, but there are no immediate plans to recall him.

MISC.: Forward Matt Harpring returned to the Jazz lineup Monday after missing the past three straight games due to swelling in his surgically repaired right knee, and finished with 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting in 27 bench minutes. . . . Participants in the NBA's annual All-Star Weekend Rookie Challenge game will be announced Wednesday, and it seems quite likely Jazz point guard Deron Williams will be named to the rookie squad that plays the league's top sophomores on Feb. 17 in Houston. . . . Rookie guard Andre Owens and sophomore forward Kris Humphries both dressed but did not play for Utah on Monday.

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com