Utah Jazz: Sundiata Gaines has strong showing at point guard

SALT LAKE CITY — With star point guard Deron Williams away from the Jazz so he could attend his uncle's funeral in West Virginia, the responsibility to run his team's offense against the Sacramento Kings on Friday fell on the shoulders of backups Ronnie Price and Sundiata Gaines.

Both arguably made impressions during the Jazz's 101-94 victory, but it was Gaines who clearly made the right one.

While Price struggled to make any substantive impact offensively — he went 0-for-4 from the field with one assist, two turnovers, two steals and two blocks in 24 minutes — Gaines was productive and solid in the career-high 24 minutes he got on the court.

Gaines played every minute of the fourth quarter for the Jazz, and while he wasn't perfect, he did plenty of positive things to make sure his team held off the Kings and won its fifth game in a row.

"He had five assists, 12 points, did a nice job of getting us into our offense and played under control most of the time," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan. "And I thought he did a pretty good job defensively. He got up under guys, he had a couple steals, he got right into guys' faces and came away with the ball. He came up with three or four of those in the game, and that certainly helps us when he does that."

Playing in the ninth game of his young NBA career, Gaines finished with career highs in several categories — minutes (24), points (12), field goals made (5), free throws made (2) and steals (3) — and tied his career high in assists (5).

In the first half, Sloan started Price, played Gaines over the end of the first quarter and start of the second quarter and then returned to Price for the rest of the half.

In the second half, Price played the entire third quarter before making way for Gaines, who played the entire fourth quarter.

Sloan said he had no hesitation in playing Gaines down the stretch, and afterward, the confidence his coach had in him certainly wasn't lost on Gaines.

"That's good. I'm glad that he had some confidence that he can keep me (in) down the stretch in a game like that," said Gaines. "The good thing for me is that I have that experience under my belt."

Gaines believes Friday's late-game experience will only pay dividends going forward.

"It can benefit me a lot," he said. "I haven't been in that situation the whole time I was here, so the more times you get in the situation, the more times you get better at it."

Price, meanwhile, struggled in Friday's game, but Sloan wasn't too hard on the Utah Valley alumnus.

"I thought he did OK," said Sloan. "He got turned around a couple times on the defensive end where he let his guy beat him and get on top of the basket. That's where point guards have got to be able to keep guys in front of you.

"He's just got to keep working at it. He tried to make a couple of sensational plays. The main thing's just to come down and execute the offense."

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