From Deseret News archives:
Off-beat Jazz still too much for Toronto
The Jazz on Wednesday night opened a three-game trip by holding on to beat Toronto 92-88 at Air Canada Centre, winning their fifth in a row and leaving coach Jerry Sloan about as giddy as he may ever get.
"I don't care what the score is," said Sloan, whose now 7-2 Jazz went into Wednesday's play averaging a league-high 111.9 points per game. "I don't pay any attention to that.
"As long as you win," added Sloan, who apparently was willing to overlook Utah's season-worst 42.9 percent field shooting, "they'll never know if it's 90s and 200s at the end of the season."
Sloan actually praised his club's late-game defense, and credited Utah's offense for reversing course following an opening half in which it scored just 39 points two nights after it had 65 in the first two quarters of a 117-93 win over Sacramento.
That's 10 fewer points than the Jazz's previous first-half low of 49, which came when they lost to Houston during the only other outing this season in which they failed to surpass the century mark.
That was particularly the case down the stretch, when clinging to an 85-83 lead 23-point, game-high scorer Carlos Boozer fed Deron Williams for an easy layup and, after Raptors star Chris Bosh answered with a dunk, Boozer scored down low on a nifty feed from Andrei Kirilenko.
"A.K. has really good vision," Boozer said of Kirilenko, who dished a game-high 11 assists and now has 39 assists in his last four games. "He's able to squeeze balls in some places where it doesn't seem like the ball should be thrown there."
Kirilenko just missed out on a triple-double for the fourth occasion in as many games, this time coming up two points and one rebound shy while also making five steals and blocking two shots.
Boozer, meanwhile, also pulled down a team-high 14 rebounds marking his NBA-leading eighth double-double in nine games.
And Williams finished with 22 points, including 11 during a fourth quarter in which he hit 5-of-5 from the free-throw line.
"He got a little bit more aggressive," Boozer said of Williams, who wound up shooting 8-of-15 from the field. "You know, we needed him to. They were doing a good job of clamping down in the paint, and D-Will started to mix it up a little bit with some crossovers, some jump shots. And it was the right time."
Credit someone who didn't even play for that.
Recent comments
jazz's just doing great...just as AK does his thing. go JAZZ!
jazzKiiFanFromManila | Nov. 16, 2007 at 12:16 a.m.
AK avg. 12.0 pts, 9.75 ast, 9.25 rbs over the past four games. That...
AK Triple Double | Nov. 15, 2007 at 10:20 p.m.
Ak is more like a point forward now. I really think that is all he...
odogtriever | Nov. 15, 2007 at 3:45 p.m.
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