Utah Jazz notebook: Revenge not on team's minds

SALT LAKE CITY — The Jazz simply aren't buying the notion that they owe Golden State payback for what happened late last season, when the Warriors — with just seven healthy players — won in Utah and helped knock coach Jerry Sloan's club into the eighth seed in the NBA's Western Conference.

Stuck with that No. 8 seed, the Jazz wound up with a one-and-done first-round playoff series with the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers.

"Who makes up this stuff?" power forward Carlos Boozer asked.

Point guard Deron Williams claimed to not even know what a reporter was talking about when asked about the same issue.

"What did they do last season?" he asked.

When reminded about the 118-108 loss last April 11, Williams said, "It's our fault, not theirs. I didn't even think about it until you brought it to my attention."

BOOZER BABBLE: Yahoo.com reported Tuesday that the New Jersey Nets "will likely center on ... Boozer this summer," and the New York Post reported the same day that while the New York Knicks "regard (Toronto's) Chris Bosh and (Phoenix's) Amar'e Stoudemire as better power-forward fits in (coach Mike) D'Antoni's speedball attack ... surely, Boozer is on the Knick list."

Boozer, who will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason, didn't bite on the Nets talk.

"I don't have any feelings about it until this summer and July," he said prior to practice. "Right now, playoff talk, baby."

Boozer did, however, tell New York reporters on Monday — only when asked — just how highly he thinks of D'Antoni, an assistant on his USA Basketball Olympic team.

"I love D'Antoni, he's the dope," Boozer said, according to the Post. "Spending time with him in the Olympics, his offensive mind-set is unbelievable. He's got the best plays I've ever been around — on a whim.

"It's like rappers when they come out on the top of the dome with quotes. He's got plays in the back of his head with plays for that moment."

DRAFT DEBATE: When the Jazz clinched their playoff berth earlier this week, their lottery-protected 2010 draft choice — originally dealt to Philadelphia as part of the December 2007 deal that brought Kyle Korver to Utah for Gordan Giricek — was conveyed to Minnesota.

No worries for the Jazz, though. They own New York's lottery pick this year. Yet the Knicks don't seem too concerned about that, either.