Utah Jazz: Look to regain winning ways

HOUSTON — After they reeled off a 10-game win streak from mid-January through early February of 2008, the Jazz abruptly lost four of their next nine.

Last season, they had a 12-game win streak that started one game before the NBA All-Star break and continued for about a month afterward through March 10 — only to finish the season a disappointing 7-11.

After winning nine straight then losing their last outing before this year's break to the Los Angeles Lakers last Wednesday night at home, then, where the Jazz go from here is someplace coach Jerry Sloan can only hope is nowhere near where they've been in recent seasons gone by.

"I think a lot of teams do that," said Sloan, whose 32-19 Jazz reconvened here Monday night for a short practice in advance of Tuesday night's visit with the Houston Rockets.

"That's what you worry about — being satisfied with having some success," he added, "and then all of a sudden it slips out from under you after you fail to get yourself ready to go."

Whether or not the ugly loss to the Kobe Bryant-less Lakers was a blip on Utah's winning-ways radar or a precursor of what's to come remains to be seen.

"We'll see," said Sloan, who got away for a couple days on his Illinois farm. "Everything kind of ended a little crazy there at the end."

Boozer — back from a weekend of warm water, sun and grouper tacos in Cabo San Lucas — writes the Laker loss off to tired-team syndrome.

"We didn't have any legs, couldn't make any shots," he said Monday.

"I'm disappointed (by that defeat), but it wasn't the end of the world," added Jazz point guard Deron Williams, who scored 14 points and dished six assists in a Western Conference loss while making his NBA All-Star Game debut Sunday at Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. "We had won nine straight before that. We were bound to lose sometime."

Bouncing back from the Laker game will be no easy task considering that the Jazz come out of the break only to face a four-stop road trip, something they haven't done since going 1-3 with losses at Miami, Orlando and Indiana and a win at New York in 2004.

But Williams, for one, sees no reason the Jazz can't run off another long streak or two.

"I think we can," he said. "I think we're playing good right now. I think we had a letdown against L.A., but I'd like to pick up right where we left off.