Utah Jazz: Echoes of last year's collapse remain on players' minds

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz don't need to take a glance at last year's results or re-read newspaper clippings from the end of the 2008-09 season as a refresher.

Nope. No reminders are necessary, thank you.

Even without pulling out the old scrapbook, they remember all too well what happened about this time last spring when the bottom fell out of what was looking to be a promising playoff run.

This might, in fact, be a proud moment for their former history teachers because the Jazz are now set on learning from the past instead of watching it repeat itself.

"I think it's a big emphasis," Deron Williams said of finishing strong.

Last year, the Jazz doomed themselves to a first-round exit in Laker Land by dropping seven of their last nine games and eight of their final 12. And in 2007, they sputtered to a 4-7 record in the home stretch, making it all the harder to work their way to the Western Conference Finals.

Falling apart at the end, especially how it happened last year, didn't just take away momentum going into the postseason. The Jazz also, in Williams' words, "kind of threw away home-court advantage," which proved costly.

"So it's definitely in the back of our minds, and we know we have to finish a lot better," Williams said. "Especially if we want to try to make a run at that two seed, we can't afford to lose too many more games."

Wednesday night's game in Toronto kicks off the first of two three-game road trips the Jazz still have on their schedule. Seven of their final 11 games are away from the comfy confines of EnergySolutions Arena, adding to the challenge.

Utah gets a bit of break, for now, if you factor in that its next three opponents — the Raptors, Indiana Pacers and Washington Wizards — are a combined 80-127. Only Toronto, at 35-34, has anything remotely close to a respectable record.

And the Jazz know it.

"These three games are huge ... they're all winnable ballgames," Williams said. "But if we don't come ready to play we could lose all of them."

As has been the case recently for the Jazz, who have dropped three straight out of Utah to lower their road record to 17-17 and up the stakes for this trip.

"We know how important these three are," Williams said. "We know how close we are to Denver and to Dallas, so this is a big stretch for us."