From Deseret News archives:
Jazz rally falls short — again
If Matt Harpring had managed to finish what he started Wednesday night, his number — 15 — might have deserved consideration to some day go up as well.
Instead, what could have gone down as one of the great one-man rallies in franchise history fell a couple possessions short as Utah lost 115-106 to Denver — leaving Harpring, among others, to contemplate all that's gone wrong lately for the Jazz.
"I think it's a mind-set," Harpring, who finished with a season-high 31 points, said after the Nuggets won their seventh game in a row en route to clinching a playoff spot and the Northwest Division-champion Jazz lost for the fifth consecutive time and sixth in their last seven outings.
"I think there was a stretch there where we were going into games knowing we were gonna win. We had a swagger. . . . We just knew we were gonna win. I mean, we had that confidence," he added. "Now, I don't know if everyone totally believes that every night that we go out there — that we're gonna win the game; no question about it; there's no ifs, ands or buts; and, if we lose, we're shocked."
There was plenty of shock, though, for the Jazz on a night in which Houston also won — putting the Rockets a game-and-a-half up on Utah for homecourt advantage in their upcoming 4-5 seed first-round playoff series.
For starters, Denver jumped to an early 16-4 lead.
Harpring, though, scored 10 points in his first seven minutes and helped the Jazz briefly go ahead late in the opening quarter.
The Nuggets offered another jolt in the third quarter, and were up by as many 14 with less than two minutes remaining in the period.
Harpring had the hot hand again in the fourth quarter, and that combined with Carlos Boozer's short hook shot in the lane helped Utah pull to within three at 109-106 with 1:41 to go.
"I got into a rhythm early, which was nice, and my teammates were looking for me," said Harpring, who finished 13-of-19 from the field. "I was coming off screens, and they were hitting me right away ... But it really didn't matter, because we lost the game."
That wasn't for certain, however, until a pair of possessions when things went awry for Harpring.
After 32-point game-high scorer Carmelo Anthony got called for pushing off on Harpring on Denver's next trip down following Boozer's basket, the Jazz had the ball and a chance to tie. But Harpring missed an 18-footer that would have matched his career-high scoring total at 33, and the Nuggets used a layup from Nene to go back up by five.
