If by some miracle the Utah Jazz do make the playoffs — and they are still mathematically alive after beating Houston, barely, 85-83 in the Delta Center Monday night — perhaps they will begin to see Jerry Sloan's picture.

The win put Utah a game up on New Orleans/Oklahoma City, which lost Monday, for the ninth spot in the Western playoff picture and helped it gain slightly toward the eighth and final playoff berth.

The playoffs bring on the physical play that separates the men from the wannabes, and the Jazz coach was not at all satisfied with what he considered his team's whining play. That complaining, in Sloan's thoughts, helped fritter away what had been an 11-point lead against a team that lost 7-foot-6 All-Star Yao Ming to a broken foot with 3:51 left in the first quarter but found the resolve to shove the Jazz around the rest of the night.

"We complain to the officials as much as any time since I've been here," said Sloan, in his 18th season as Jazz head coach. "We started crying because they bumped us right at the beginning, and we cried until it was over."

Borrowing from former Jazz coach Frank Layden, whom he assisted, Sloan changed the Layden phrase "You can't teach height," to, "You can't teach toughness."

Perhaps a playoff series could help, though that's a pretty remote possibility with five games left, including division winner Denver on Wednesday in the Delta Center.

That lack of toughness, Sloan said, ruined Utah's concentration through much of the game and was perhaps responsible for giving Rocket Juwan Howard (25 points) a fighting chance at winning the game, or at least tying it.

Howard got wide open in the right corner and, stepping inside the arc to be able to get the shot off, Howard made the final attempt, but it was clearly after the game's final buzzer and was immediately disallowed.

"I was disappointed in us giving them the ability to shoot the three," said Sloan. "I guess we have to do a better job of explaining how to play that. We didn't guard him. I told them you've got to stay at home on the 3-point shots.

"Some of that goes back to when you get your feelings hurt a little bit, you lose your concentration. That's why you have to learn to be able to fight through those things. Then next time it comes up, you don't let that same mistake bury you and hope that they do miss — or in that case that they got it off a little bit late."

Mehmet Okur was to have been guarding Howard on the play on the opposite side of the court from where the ball was unbounded, but Okur said he noted the shot clock and decided instead to help on the man driving toward the lane who kicked it out to Howard.