From Deseret News archives:
Hornets down listless Jazz
Sloan disturbed by team's apparent lack of energy
Perhaps the man from Utah hurting most Saturday night, however, was Jerry Sloan.
The Jazz coach seemed simply stung by his 29-16 club's performance in a 94-83 road loss to the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, so much so he made no bones about just how much its lack of effort was killing him.
"Forget about the guys being hurt," Sloan said. "If we would have played hard and played with determination, and we lost the game, I could live with that. But I can't live with what I saw tonight on a consistent basis.
"It looked like we were all sick, for the most part. ... That's very disturbing for this team, to me," he added. "Young guys didn't have energy? Are you kidding me?"
Sloan didn't name names, but if he had he might have mentioned that rookie Ronnie Brewer, who started in Kirilenko's place, went scoreless one night after matching his career scoring high, and that 27-year-old starting center and usual 17-plus point scorer Mehmet Okur mustered only 11 points in 42 minutes, and that sophomore starting point guard Deron Williams, matched up against discarded former Jazz shooting guard Devin Brown, committed four turnovers while Brown produced 13 points.
Sloan, in fact, offered praise only for second-round rookie and backup power forward Paul Millsap, who stepped in after Boozer hobbled out — X-rays taken Saturday were negative, but he'll be further evaluated today and his status for Monday's home game against New Jersey is uncertain — and finished with 15 points and a career-high 17 rebounds.
"If he hadn't been out there, I don't know what we would have had," Sloan said after Millsap posted his third career double-double. "He looked like he was trying to compete all night long. I probably shouldn't have taken him out of the game.
"That's a pretty good night's work for a young man that hasn't played a great deal," the Jazz coach added after Millsap, who averages fewer than 17 minutes per game, did what he did while logging 35. "He put every bit of energy he had to try to help us win. The rest of 'em looked like ... "
Sloan never finished the thought.
But even with Williams offering eight assists and 27 points on 11-of-19 shooting from the field, he didn't need to, clearly frustrated that no one else answered the bell after Boozer knocked knees with Hornets center Tyson Chandler just three minutes and 49 seconds into the game.
Flustered too, for that matter, were Jazz players themselves.
