Utah Jazz: Inside-outside play can pay dividends

CHICAGO — As they open a four-games-in-six-nights trip tonight at Chicago, coach Jerry Sloan just wishes his Jazz's approach to turning the ignition was more like his was back in his days with the Bulls.

Even if the buggies were a bit slower back then, and Mrs. O'Leary's cow still was staring at the lantern.

"I've always said, 'Try to get a layup first. If you get a layup first, then go shoot it out on the floor, and if you miss it, you're still shooting 50 percent,' " said Sloan, whose career in Chicago actually started in 1966 — more than a dozen years before any of his current players were born.

"As corny as that sounds," he added, "I tried to do that when I played."

Besides making mathematical sense, Sloan's line of thinking is also common sense.

It's always higher-percentage play to pound it inside, rather than risk the alternative.

Yet, the 40-22 Jazz have insisted on settling for outside jumpers early on all too often in recent games, and Sloan suspects he knows why.

"I think everybody's trying to get themselves (going)," he said. "That's always been kind of the nature of it — get me a shot, see where I am, see if I'm feeling good."

That attitude is part of why the Jazz are only 4-3 in their last seven outings, frequently have had to play from behind in that span and could — if finally reversing course didn't allow them to get away with it in last Saturday night's home win over the Los Angeles Clippers — easily be 3-4.

"We just kind of hung around and waited until we felt like we could get rid of it," Sloan said.

"We shot a lot of jump shots early," power forward Carlos Boozer added with reference to the Clippers game. "But we corrected it. We started going inside, and that opened up the outside."

And one thing leads to another.

"When we go inside, it opens up the outside," Boozer said. "The outside opens up the inside sometimes, and if we get out on fast breaks, we get steals, we get confidence and it's just fun basketball."

Not to mention more sound basketball defensively, making it so much easier to get back than when a long rebound sends on opponent racing the other way.

Sloan can only hope the feeling is not forgotten as the Jazz venture abroad in the month to come.

Currently in a stretch with 6 of 7 on the road, they play 12 of their final 20 games away from home.