Utah Jazz: Rockets clamping down on Boozer

HOUSTON — After Saturday's Game 4 in the ongoing Jazz-Houston Rockets NBA playoff series, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan addressed the 3-for-13 field shooting of All-Star power forward Carlos Boozer.

"They're doing a pretty good job guarding him," Sloan said of Boozer, who after scoring 20 points in Game 1 of the series has been limited to 13 points in Game 2, 15 in Game 3 and 14 in Game 4. "I don't know how else to explain it.

"I mean, they've taken some of his shots away," Sloan added. "When he drives to the basket, they drop in and try to give help."

Yet Sloan also called out Boozer a bit for the way he's been running the floor.

"(He) ran down the middle of the floor a couple times, and they're right there, and we turned the ball over," he said.

The Jazz prefer for their players to run down the sidelines, not the middle.

"We can't change our whole philosophy on what we try to do. (Point guard) Deron (Williams) turned the ball over on one (play) in the early part of (Game 4 with) a guy running down the middle of the floor. That's not the way we try to run a break," Sloan added. "Right or wrong, we have to have some semblance of order — and if you do those things then you get a better chance to get easy baskets. That goes for Boozer as well as everybody else."

On Monday, after a day off from practice, Boozer addressed his struggles — or, as he sees it, a lack thereof.

"I know I'm not playing well," said Boozer, whose 16.0 points per game this postseason are 7.5 below what he averaged in last year's playoffs. "I haven't shot the ball well, but my team is up 3-1 and there is more basketball left to be played."

Sloan, meanwhile, was asked Monday how he can get Boozer going.

"We can holler and tell them not to guard him, but I don't think they will listen to us," he said. "No, he's just got to play.

"You get into the position where everybody thinks you have to make every basket and you put too much pressure on yourself," Sloan added. "There are opportunities. You've just got to shoot the ball. One of the things he did was make a couple of nice passes (Saturday). — He'll be just fine."

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Contributing: Loren Jorgensen

E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com