Utah Jazz breeze past Hornets without guilt

SALT LAKE CITY — A real test will come Monday night, when Boston visits, and another follows when later this week they head back out on the road, which hasn't been kind to them lately.

For now, though, the Jazz don't feel guilty at all about savoring easy games like Saturday night, when Utah beat New Orleans 106-86 at EnergySolutions Arena.

The Jazz rolled behind double-figure scoring from all five starters, a 22-point and season-high 15-rebound double-double off the bench from power forward Paul Millsap, 19 points on 8-of-11 field shooting (including 8-for-8 to start) from swingman C.J. Miles and a season high-tying 11 points in a career-high 43 minutes by usual backup center Kyrylo Fesenko.

"We just played well together," said point guard Deron Williams, who scored 17 and dished 11 of the Jazz's 28 assists to post his 36th double-double of the season.

"We went out there and had fun," Williams added. "We shared the basketball, we helped each other, we were active on defense, which is a good thing."

Good, too, is the way the 45-25 Jazz have been playing lately at home, where they've won six straight.

The last five of those six victories have been by 20 points or more, with the Jazz's biggest lead in each being at least 25.

This time it was 35, reached three times in the third quarter and twice in the fourth, a high-water mark just two points off their biggest lead this season vs. New Jersey.

Moreover, the Jazz — who were playing their fifth game in seven nights, and their third amid 4-of-5 at home — are now 9-7 in the second game of back-to-back sets.

They're 13-1 when all five starters score 10 or more, including 8-0 at home.

And they're now 24-2 when scoring 100 or more at EnergySolutions.

The stretch of five recent blowouts at home, though, has — in all fairness — featured wins over hapless teams or, as in Saturday's case, ones down on their luck.

Absent Hornets included both star point guard Chris Paul, who is still recovering from knee surgery, and would-be starter Peja Stojakovic (groin strain).

New Orleans — now 8-17 since Paul's been out because of the knee — also lost former All-Star big man David West when he was ejected late in the opening quarter on a flagrant-2 foul for whacking Utah guard Kyle Korver in the head.

"They're going through tough times," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said.

But Sloan's club — which moved to a game-and-a-half ahead of Phoenix and Oklahoma City in the fight for fourth place in the NBA's Western Conference, now is one-and-a-half back of third-place and pulled to within two games of Northwest Division-leader Denver after the Nuggets lost Saturday to Milwaukee — was dealing with some issues of its own while winning the war of attrition.