Jazz are lacking rhythm

Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan hates excuses almost as much as he hates a big reason for them — losing.

He's not given to complaining about injured players. "I can't worry about that" is his standard line. To him, fatigue is just a poor state of mind.

But on the Monday after the Jazz's losing streak had mounted to four, matching a season-high, and with the 32-36 Golden State Warriors coming to town tonight on a three-game win streak, Sloan seemed a bit resigned to talk about how little things added up last week.

"We're not in the rhythm a lot of teams get into at this stage of the season," he said. "We won some games, but it seems like we've had someone miss a game almost every time we've played here in the last (little while) — but that shouldn't be an excuse. The point is simply, you know for teams like us, we have to play in a rhythm."

Sloan may have the same problems tonight. Both Gordan Giricek and Matt Harpring are listed as doubtful after missing Saturday's game at Cleveland with injuries.

Giricek underwent a CT scan Monday that revealed no structural damage but did show bruising on his ribs from the hip check he took Friday in Philadelphia on the Sixers' final play. Harpring had a Monday MRI that also revealed no structural damage to his repaired knee (microfracture surgery) but did show a slight strain in the hamstring tendon.

Back in the John Stockton to Karl Malone days, that rhythm Sloan mentioned might not have been so necessary. Malone owned the low block most of his career and spent a lot of time shooting free throws because opponents couldn't stop him.

Now, said Sloan, "We don't have a guy that's going to go out and get you 20 free throws that can cover you when you come down the stretch and get in that (deficit) situation. You have to try and do it from the team, and when you're just a little bit out of sync, you don't do it as well."

When players can't defend opponents by themselves, defensive teamwork is needed. When that doesn't stay in rhythm, the dreaded "Z" word may surface.

"We had to go to a zone a lot more times than I expected us having to do in order to try to compensate for an inability to keep people in front of us," Sloan said. "Not just in one position but all sides of the ball."

The zone hurts a team's defensive rebounding ability.

"Come down the stretch," he said of the loss in Cleveland on Saturday, "they must have gotten five, six offensive rebounds. That breaks your back."