Jazz try to play catch-up, fall to Hornets

After coaching 1,399 previous regular-season games for the Jazz, coach Jerry Sloan has been around long enough that he should have a mulligan or two stashed in his back pocket.

If he really did, Saturday — game No. 1,400 with Utah — would have been the night to use one.

That's because after falling 100-95 to the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets at the Delta Center, Sloan was blaming himself for the loss — or, at the very least, for what went wrong on a critical-possession play in which the Jazz could have either forced overtime or notched the win.

"We started to play a little bit at the end of the ballgame, but it was a little bit too late," the Jazz coach said. "Then you have to have a perfect finish."

Utah did not.

Sloan did take some jabs at the 26-29 Jazz for their effort, even suggesting the 30-25 Hornets played with more heart.

But on a night at least a couple in the Jazz locker room seemed to be pointing at each other, he was the one kicking himself most for a final few seconds gone awry.

After rallying from 11 down late in the third quarter, the Jazz tied the game on three separate occasions in the final three minutes of the fourth — the last time when Milt Palacio used an Andrei Kirilenko-fed dunk to make it 95-95 with 44.8 seconds to go.

Chris Paul of the Hornets countered, and went to the free-throw line after fellow rookie point Deron Williams — back in the starting lineup for the first time since late December — was called for a foul.

Asked if he thought Paul was stumbling on the play — many on the Jazz bench were crying for a traveling call — Williams did not bite.

"I don't know," he said. "It's just the way it goes."

After Paul made his two freebies to make it a two-point game, the Jazz got the ball back with 25.2 seconds remaining.

The possession blew up for the Jazz, as Palacio tried to force a pass to Carlos Boozer with the shot clock winding down. The end result was a turnover, and New Orleans sealed its win with a few free throws.

In one corner of the Jazz locker room, Palacio suggested he never should have had to try the pass to Boozer.

"It was a busted play," he said. "I thought (before that) Boozer was wide open, but Andrei (Kirilenko) didn't the throw the ball in.

"The . . . play was to get him (Boozer) the ball, but we didn't."