Pesky 'Wolves feast on Jazz turnovers

MINNEAPOLIS — After posting a season-high turnover count of 24 Tuesday, the Jazz can return their brooms to the closet.

They won't be taking full advantage of four seemingly advantageous late-season games against the NBA Northwest Division's last-place team. They won't go undefeated in a season series against Minnesota for the first time since 1999. They won't, in other words, be sweeping the Timberwolves.

That's evident after Minnesota used a 13-2 run in the fourth quarter to beat Northwest-leading Utah 111-100 at Target Center and take a 1-0 lead in the series with three meetings remaining between now and early April.

"To me that's a sign you're not really into the game, when you have those things happen," coach Jerry Sloan said of the Jazz's high miscue count, which included 14 turnovers at halftime. "But you've got to give them credit. They got up and played us, they got their hands on us, they knocked us around.

"Anywhere we went they got up and got a piece of the basketball," Sloan added, noting that 16 of Utah's turnovers stemmed from Minnesota steals. "And they beat us on the offensive boards, 15-9. They were going after the ball. They wanted the game more than we did."

Jazz All-Star Carlos Boozer finished with a game-high 34 points, but also committed a team-high six turnovers.

"We didn't take care of the ball good enough. I didn't take care of the ball good enough," Boozer said. "We've got to be a little sharper. We gave them a little too much confidence."

The rebuilding Timberwolves — winning for just the 12th time in 55 games — got a 22-point, 10-rebound double-double from Al Jefferson; 22 bench points from Rashad McCants; a 20-point, 11-board double-double from Ryan Gomes; and another 20 points from Randy Foye.

That marks just the fifth time in 18 years an opponent has had four 20-plus point scorers against the Jazz.

Last time it happened: January 2003, when Tim Thomas, Michael Redd, Sam Cassell and Ray Allen did it in a Milwaukee loss to Utah.

"We couldn't stop anybody, and when we did they were getting offensive rebounds," said Sloan, whose club fell to 36-21 with losses in two of its last three games.

"They played more powerful than we did," Sloan added, "because they knocked us around, they got us out of the paint, they made you take tough shots, and if you took the ball to the basket they had somebody there to get a piece of it."