Fisher finally gets best of Bulls eighties babies

Derek Fisher calls them "these eighties babies," the quick young guards who can skitter all over the floor like water bugs and seemingly hit any shot from anywhere and get fouled, too.

The Chicago Bulls are another team driven by the young guns in the backcourt, the kids born in the 1980s that make a Jazzman like Fisher, born in 1974, have to work up a real sweat guarding them.

Monday night, Fisher mainly had the assignment on Chicago's Ben Gordon, who scores 21.5 points a game in his third year out of Connecticut and had 23 on the Jazz Jan. 20, despite what Utah coach Jerry Sloan called a good game against him by Fisher in Chicago.

Monday night in EnergySolutions Arena, Gordon scored only 11 points on 4-for-12 shooting, though he had nine free throws, getting a few fouls called against Fisher, who finished with five but managed to hang in through the end of the game.

Fisher, in fact, had the last two Jazz points of the game on two free throws with just under eight seconds left to give him a season-high 19 in a game that Utah won 100-95.

"He did a good job trying to guard Gordon and the other people he was on," said Sloan of Fisher, who also had a hand at point guard Kirk Hinrich (26 points) and Chris Duhon (14 points off the bench).

"He got up and played very strong on (Gordon) and tried not to let him get off because that's a tough assignment, whoever has to guard him," Sloan said. "He got up on him and tried to challenge him. (Gordon) can really shoot the ball. He's a wonderful shooter. He can catch it and shoot it quick."

"It's always a challenge, is the word I'll use, to try and chase these eighties babies around when I'm out there" said a smiling Fisher, thinking about Hinrich, born in 1981; Duhon, born in '82; and Gordon, born in '83.

"They're some of the best players in our league, Ben Gordon and Hinrich and those guys. They're good.

"But," said Fisher with an even bigger smile, "I get a lot of practice chasing Deron (Williams) and Dee (Brown) and guys on our team in practice on a daily basis."

While Fisher remains a strong free-throw shooter at a team-best 87.1 percent with his 7-for-7 night Monday, his field goal percentage is only 40.1, and he was 6-for-13 Monday, even if his shots seemed to make more of a difference when he made them. Sloan criticized one of them on which Fisher held the ball too long waiting for the shot clock to run low and then missed.