Okafor followed with a short bank-shot, and — with 50.9 seconds remaining — Carroll delivered the dagger, a 3-pointer that put Charlotte up by 10 at 97-87.

Rather than fully savor their rare victory, the 7-18 Bobcats — who also have knocked off the likes of above-.500 Cleveland, San Antonio, Detroit and Orlando — spent part of postgame paying homage to the Jazz.

"You won't find a better team when it comes to execution than Utah," Charlotte coach Bernie Bickerstaff said. "The really do a terrific job of execution. The read each other, and they keep offensive pressure on you, and when their guys get open they the get the ball."

"They're so physical, and so tough," Carroll added. "We had to play a total team effort to put them down when they got close."

Just don't try telling of that to the Jazz, whose most physical play of the evening might have come when they were all kicking themselves afterward.

"Same old story: We're just not quite good enough if we don't have everybody on the same page ... I don't know that we understand what it takes to be good all the time," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, who also was upset that some of his players forgot what plays they were supposed to run coming of two different timeouts. "We started breaking plays because they were too physical for us, and we got out of the ballgame.

"We didn't decide to execute until we got down in the latter part of the ballgame," added Sloan, who said Charlotte "dominated" and "waxed" his club. "We thought we were going to make a dramatic run again and try to get back in the game, but they (the Bobcats) executed their offense well (and) they got shots where they wanted to get shots."

The Jazz?

Their hardest-hitting shots seemed aimed at each other.

"We say before every game we've got to come out and play like we know we can," Williams said, "but some games it doesn't happen.

"Normally we help each other offensively and defensively, but lately we haven't been helping each other," added forward Carlos Boozer, whose game-high 22 points and game-high 14 rebounds marked his league-leading 20th double-double of the season. "We just have to do a better job by having the mindset of needing each other. That's the only way we are going to win games."

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com