Miller apologizes for comments

Larry H. Miller shouldn't have said what he did the other day in an angry and hurried moment, and Derek Fisher wasn't simply reacting to the harsh word Miller had used, he was saying things he's wanted to say for a long time.

At least that's the way the involved parties portrayed their feelings as Wednesday's Utah Jazz game against playoff-opponent Houston (a 101-91 win over the resting Rockets) finished off the 2006-07 regular NBA season in EnergySolutions Arena. The two teams will meet each other in the first round of playoffs starting this weekend.

The Jazz owner had about a half-hour meeting with his team following Wednesday's shootaround, and Wednesday evening he said, "I shouldn't have said that, and I told the team."

He was referring to comments printed in a Sunday newspaper article in which he criticized the Jazz after a lackadaisical loss to Phoenix, which was Utah's sixth loss in seven games.

A day later, veteran guard Fisher seemed to take exception to Miller's comment and said, " ... what it's not time for is peripheral people to have comments about what's going on in our locker room and questioning who we are as a team. And I don't really care who that is."

The mid-day meeting was perhaps a healing experience, and both parties said they were OK with each other.

"I figured that would be on everybody's mind, like the elephant in the phone booth," Miller said. "The meeting was good to have, and I would describe it as a wish-you-well-for-the-playoffs-in-a-quiet-but-subtle-way deal with the other issues and suggest everybody just move on and focus on the goals ahead.

"I didn't have a tiff with Derek, and ... I said that. He wanted to express that he knew he should be 'a positive force — at the worst a neutral force, but not a negative force'. "

He invited team members to speak, though he knew they likely wouldn't.

"Anyway, I said that, and I shouldn't have,' Miller reiterated Wednesday night.

Fisher said he'd felt like saying some of what he did earlier in the season, and Monday was when it came out. "He made a statement, and I made a statement in response to not only his statement but just overall. It was something I probably wanted to say overall but just held onto it.

"It was something I just feel is important, and I want everybody to hear that, not just to him, just to Coach (Jerry Sloan) or to the fellas. It was to everybody. That's important to me," said Fisher.

Miller praised Fisher.