Jazz lack effort, intensity in 'soft' outing at Miami

MIAMI — The Jazz shot just 13 free throws in Tuesday's 121-83 loss at Miami. The Heat shot 48.

Think coach Jerry Sloan was upset?

You betcha.

It had nothing to do, however, with the wide disparity. Rather, he was steaming over the reason for it.

"You start dodging screens, and they start nailing you, and you start going to the outside, you don't get to the free-throw line," Sloan said. "You can beg all you want, but the officials aren't going to let you go to the free-throw line if you don't stand up and be a man out there, and take some people on."

The Jazz, in other words, played way too soft for Sloan's liking.

"We've got guys running just in soft circles," he said, "instead of setting their man up (and) coming hard off of screens.

"(You) see our guys half-afraid to compete," the Jazz coach added. "It's not good for basketball."

OSTERTAG BACK: Jazz reserve center Greg Ostertag played for the first time Tuesday after missing two games and most of another with a sprained ankle.

Ostertag wasn't going to play but decided to after pre-game warmups — in part because of how the ankle felt, and in part because he figured the Jazz could use him against Shaquille O'Neal.

He wound up logging just seven minutes.

"In the second half," he said, "I sat so long it did tighten up on me, and I wasn't running as good, obviously."

HMM: At 9-8 so far, the Jazz are one of just six NBA teams — along with Detroit, Phoenix, Miami, Dallas and Chicago — that have a winning record in the second game of back-to-back sets.

After playing tonight at Orlando, Utah will have three back-to-back sets remaining this season.

TOURNEY TIES: A few former and current Jazz players have ties to that little college tourney that gets underway this week. Among them:

Ex-Jazz guard and current Bradley University coach Jim Les' Braves open NCAA championship play Friday as a No. 13 seed vs. Kansas, which is where Ostertag went to school. Les spent the entire 1988-89 season with the Jazz.

Montana coach Larry Krystkowiak, who played 71 games for the Jazz during the 1992-93 season, has his 12th-seeded Grizzlies in the dance for a second straight year. They have a first-round game Thursday vs. Nevada at the Huntsman Center.