Jazz not in panic mode just yet

Looking ahead typically is about as taboo as it gets for NBA coaches.

Yet Jazz coach Jerry Sloan took time to do just that before Tuesday's win over struggling Indiana.

It wasn't to tonight's TNT-televised showdown with the Western Conference-leading Phoenix Suns, however. Rather, it was much, much farther down the road than that.

"We've got to hang in there and stay alive to make a good push at the end of the year," Sloan said then. "That's the best time of the year to be playing your best basketball."

Sloan's apparent fear?

A club hovering near .500 might decline to the point it never gets a chance to regroup and rise in postseason play.

After the Jazz polished off the Pacers in rather convincing fashion — leading by as many as a season-high 32 points in the fourth quarter and easily topping the previous high of 28 — it was obvious the concern didn't just rest with the coach.

"We want to try to get back on the right track," point guard Deron Williams said. "It's getting late in the season, you know, and it's not looking good for us right now."

It's not.

Creeping up on the halfway mark of an 82-game regular season, the 19-17 Jazz remain out of the Western Conference playoff picture looking in.

While there may be a wee bit of worry, though, it would be an overstatement to suggest panic is about to set in.

"But we still have a lot of ballgames to play," Williams hastened to add after Tuesday's win pushed the Jazz to 13-3 at home, "and a lot of time to turn it around."

Time, however, can be oh-so-relative.

Some with the Jazz, who before Tuesday had lost 12 of their previous 17 games, seem fret-free.

"We have — how many? — like almost 50 games (actually, 46) to play," forward Andrei Kirilenko said when asked if there is ample time to reverse course. "Why not?"

Others, however, are a tad more uptight.

"We need to starting (stringing together victories)," Williams said. "Soon."

"It's getting there," veteran forward Matt Harpring added when asked if he felt like it's the point in the season now when there is a sense that if things do not quickly turn favorably they may never turn that way. "I mean, there's still of lot of season left. We haven't even reached the halfway-point, so a lot can happen. But, I mean, we're certainly getting to the point of concern. But, with that being said, we've still got some time."

Ah, time.

By the time for practice Wednesday morning, Sloan seemed more confident that there indeed is ample opportunity — ample time — for the Jazz to fight through the frame and put themselves squarely back in the West's postseason snapshot.