Sloan says Jazz have to step up

Jerry Sloan looks at the opposition, each and all doing their part, and practically drools in admiration. He watches his own club, no more than a couple with their act truly together, and it about makes him spittin' mad.

Therein lies the difference between the San Antonio Spurs and the Jazz two games into the NBA's 2007 Western Conference finals, a chasm so wide you can line up abreast 20 or so of Sloan's treasured John Deere tractors and still not touch either side.

The Spurs:

"It's kind of interesting: They're not scoring 150 points every night," Sloan said of the team that leads the best-of-seven series 2-0 heading into tonight's Game 3 at EnergySolutions Arena. "But they're very, very efficient with everything they do. That's not a lot of flair, but that's winning basketball."

The Jazz?

"We keep trying to get a 150-point game every night," the farmer from Illinois said.

The Spurs:

"They don't come out and start shooting 3-point shots to start the ballgame off," Sloan said. "They pass the ball around, run a little pick-and-roll, throw the ball inside, play off of that — and, then, if they get a 3-point shot, they shoot it. I mean, they're coming out and getting layups. That's when you're efficient."

The Jazz?

"If some guy's gonna complain about not getting enough shots," Sloan said, "then he's probably not gonna guard anybody — and not have anything else go well. I think that's a part of growing up — and I hate to keep using that word, because I'm worn out with it."

The Spurs:

"You have to be awfully tough to play against them," the Jazz coach said, "and right now they're far ahead of us."

The Jazz?

"You worry about missing a shot or something on the other end of the floor, and it takes your concentration away," he said. "We have to be stronger than that mentally."

The Spurs:

Well, you get the picture — and it isn't a pretty one for Utah, which appears to perhaps be having an even tougher battle with its own self-doubt than with a San Antonio team that simply owned the Jazz in the series' first two games.