Kirilenko stumbles in 'coaching' debut

After the Jazz had rallied, and actually made a game of it Saturday night with the mighty Dallas Mavericks, Andrei Kirilenko took things into his own hands.

He made a couple of his own coaching decisions. Didn't even clue his, ahem, coach in — or, for that matter, some of his teammates. Simply did what he thought might work.

And after the Jazz were done losing 90-87 at the Delta Center to the Mavs, and Dallas star Dirk Nowitzki was finished with a shining 34-point performance, all a completely out of character Jerry Sloan could do with his own hands was figuratively throw them up and suggest it simply is what it is.

"Well," Sloan said, "Andrei's got to be Andrei.

"I'm not going to get in a rift with him," the Jazz coach added. "The important thing for him is to play and play well. Whatever it takes . . . I'm going to accept that."

Reverse psychology? Sad resignation? Cold, harsh reality?

Call it whatever you want at the end of a madcap week for the Jazz.

On Monday night, franchise owner Larry H. Miller held an executive board meeting on the Delta Center floor in the final seconds of a near-loss to Orlando.

On Wednesday morning, amid rumor that Miller had threatened to fire him — Miller later denied it — Sloan met with the owner to clear the air. On Wednesday night, Kirilenko vented about being yelled at by Sloan too much and loved too little.

On Thursday morning, Sloan addressed at length his frustrations with balancing Kirilenko's budding greatness with the Russian forward's often unpredictable, freelance-first style of play.

And on Saturday evening it culminated in this, a near-win over the Western Conference-leading Mavericks that ended with Kirilenko offering heady albeit unconventional play and a composed Sloan using carefully chosen words to scratch his own head.

After West-leader Dallas (49-13) ran up a 15-point advantage in the second quarter and went into halftime ahead 11 at 51-40, the 30-32 Jazz settled down and started chipping away.

When Kirilenko hit a crazy layup with eight minutes and 47 seconds remaining, the Jazz had their first lead of the game, 69-68. Dallas' Jason Terry responded with a 3-pointer, and Jazz forward Carlos Boozer answered back with a layup to make it 71-71 with 8:06 left.