Jazz keep Redd at bay, stop Bucks

A couple times Monday night, there were flashbacks.

When Michael Redd had 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the field in the opening quarter, visions of his 57-point game against them last month danced in the minds at least some with the Jazz.

Even when Utah went up by 28 in the third quarter, most did not forget how the Bucks very nearly came from 24 down to win the one in Milwaukee.

"We reminded ourselves," point guard Deron Williams said, "about what happened there."

And they made sure to not make it so difficult this time around.

This time, indeed, there would be no franchise-record scoring performances by Redd, no rally to turn a would-be rout into a nail-biter. This time, instead, the Jazz contained Milwaukee's main man, shot down the Bucks as they tried to come back and rolled to a 101-88 win at EnergySolutions Arena.

In doing so, behind double-doubles from both Carlos Boozer (13 rebounds and a game-high 30 points) and Mehmet Okur (17 points, 13 boards), Utah improved its league-best record to 15-4, won for the third time in four games and put Jerry Sloan within one successful outing of NBA coaching victory No. 1,000.

No wonder the Jazz were crowing afterward, particularly over the job done on the man who not long ago scored more than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ever did in any one game for the Bucks.

"We just helped a lot more," Williams said of containing Redd, who wound up with just 18 points on 6-of-15 field shooting.

"We knew he was going to get his points, because he's a great scorer and it's tough to stop a guy like that," the Jazz point added an 11-point, eight-assist night of his own. "But we just gave a lot more help to our 2-guard — whoever was guarding him at the time — and tried to pay a lot more attention to him than we did last game."

Early on, the task of shadowing Redd fell to veteran Derek Fisher, who made his second straight start at shooting guard in place of demoted youngsters C.J. Miles and Ronnie Brewer.

Later, swingman Andrei Kirilenko — who spent the latter part of the Jazz's escape in Milwaukee nursing a sprained ankle — did his part to make Redd's night most miserable.

Even Bucks coach Terry Stotts was impressed.

"They were physical," he said, "and made it tough for him (Redd) to get the ball where he wanted."