Typically, Sloan not impressed

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — A built-in excuse gave Jerry Sloan sufficient cause not to celebrate Sunday's visit here.

But the Jazz also shed one reason for their own compromised play of late, allowing Sloan's players to savor a 103-93 victory over the Detroit Pistons even if their coach was not particularly impressed with the start to a three-game road trip.

Sloan's justification for refusing to smile, even after Utah won for a third straight time and improved to 10-4 while handing the 8-5 Pistons their first home loss this season: Detroit was without veteran big man Rasheed Wallace, as the Pistons' 15.2 points-per-game scorer and 7.2 boards-per-game rebounder strolled the sideline with a sore left knee.

"We beat a team without their best player," Sloan said after the Jazz, who visit New York tonight, defeated the Pistons for a fifth straight time. "I don't know how you jump up and down too much, because obviously everybody knows how important he is to their team."

Equally important to the Jazz, however, is a point guard who for the first time in a long time was playing relatively pain-free.

Deron Williams' sore big toe was little bother, and that played as much a part in Utah's success as not only Wallace's absence but even the stellar showing of power forward Carlos Boozer.

Boozer finished with a season-high 36 points on 17-of-20 shooting from the field, and pulled down a team-high 11 rebounds for his 11th double-double in 14 games this season.

His scoring total was largely aided by the play of Williams, who scored 21 points and dished a season-high 14 assists while recording his fifth double-double of the season.

"It was great, because it was like the first game in about two or three weeks where his toe wasn't hurting as much," Boozer said of Williams, who had an ingrown nail on the right-foot toe surgically repaired last Tuesday.

"You can see how much quicker he was, how much crisper his passes were," Boozer added. "He just seemed like a different player out there (compared to) the last five or six games."

Williams did not deny that it made a huge difference.

"My toe felt a lot better — the best it's felt in a couple weeks," he said. "That had a little bit to do with it. A lot, really, because I could actually push off of it."

Williams seemed to be able to the push the game's pace at will, and that helped shove Utah to a 10-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.

What also thrust the Jazz forward, however, was a Pistons meltdown late in the third.