Back on track — Jazz start fast, hold on when Dallas makes comeback

They were back at home for one night. The "Money Man," Mehmet Okur, was back in the lineup. They were all aware that the NBA standings for the early part of this week showed them to be out of playoff contention, if the postseason were starting now.

Whatever the motivation, the Utah Jazz stopped a five-game Dallas Mavericks (19-10) winning streak and at least momentarily stemmed their own frustrations Wednesday night in EnergySolutions Arena with the kind of game that coach Jerry Sloan really likes to see.

"It looked like they had a lot more passion for basketball than what we've had. Somewhere you have to have that," said Sloan, whose team built a 16-0 lead to open the game by playing defense that Sloan said "was about as good in the first quarter as I've seen since I've been here.

"We had a lot of guys play well. That's what you have to have in order to beat a team like that. That's what was so satisfying."

Utah weathered several Dallas comeback attempts and wound up with a desperately needed 99-90 victory that didn't necessarily put the Jazz back in the playoff race but at least dulled some of the frustrations they've felt while losing nine of the 11 previous games.

Utah, 16-14, plays at the Los Angeles Lakers Friday night, then is back home for games against the Boston Celtics Saturday and Portland Trail Blazers Monday.

"If you step up to the challenge and play like that every night, you make up for a lot of things that's happened," Sloan said.

"Oh, man, we talked out there and helped," said Carlos Boozer, "did a good job of making stops when we had to make them, and we finally made our free throws down the stretch.

"It's a good win for us. It feels good to be on the other side. Hopefully we can take that as confidence and move forward."

Boozer noted that the whole team was well aware of its out-of-the-playoffs current standing and had an urgent feeling about it. "Once that got across, we have a chance to do something special, and we don't want to give it up," he said. "We're 30 games in right now. We have to make our mark now, otherwise there won't be a mark to be made."

Sloan was effusive in his praise for the way his team played, especially in the first period, which Utah won 29-18.

"They were executing. It looked like they were having fun playing basketball," said Sloan.

"They certainly need to do that. They need to have fun, and they did tonight, and our fans were — in contrast to the last (home) game — totally different, stayed behind them the whole time."