Jazz have no defense for loss

Oh, is the All-Star break over?

"I think we thought we were playing an All-Star game where you don't have to play defense," said Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, whose team on Tuesday night took up where it left off at Los Angeles eight days ago with another meltdown.

Utah lost much of what had been a 14-point lead in the second quarter, saw Boston score 37 points in the third quarter alone and fell for the third straight time, with the Celtics coming out of their own pre-All-Star doldrums for a 103-83 win in the Delta Center.

Not a happy coming-out party for Jazz forward Carlos Boozer (10 rebounds), who played in the Delta Center for the first time in 375 days due to foot and hamstring injuries. Boozer was greeted with more applause than boos by the crowd, but the Jazz started hearing more boos in the third period.

Sloan called it "a tell-tale way" that Jazz players didn't get over screens to guard Boston's Delonte West and Paul Pierce, and when they did get out to try and check them, West and Pierce and friends drove to the basket. And no one helped on defense.

Sloan noted a drive by Brian Scalabrine on which he went untouched to the basket and nobody really helped until Memo Okur blocked him from behind, Andrei Kirilenko-style. When the 6-foot-9, 235-pound Scalabrine got so easily to the hoop, the Jazz crowd booed loudly.

The Celtic assault began when West lost Jazzmen on screens, outscoring Utah 10-2 to shoot down a Jazz lead from 45-31 to 47-43 at the half.

Then the Celtics changed their defenses and zoned Utah in the second half, effectively putting a lid on the basket, while the All-Star Pierce scored 17 third-quarter points for an 80-64 third-period lead.

"The defense in the second half was phenomenal" to Boston coach Doc Rivers, whose team had lost seven of its last nine games coming into Utah. "They switched, they talked, they communicated. That was absolutely incredible."

Especially when only one team is doing it.

"We didn't know if they were in a zone, man-to-man, or what," Sloan said. "We had a terrible finish in the first half. They just waxed our ears back pretty good."

"I think it's my fault," said Kirilenko, who had held Pierce to 11 through the first half but saw him explode to 30 by game's end. "I just couldn't get over the screens," and no one was there to slow Pierce down on the other side.