Utah Jazz: Losing skid continues as Jazz fall to Spurs

Jazz-Spurs boxscore

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz did three positive things in Wednesday's game against the San Antonio Spurs that they haven't done in quite some time.

Unfortunately for the struggling team and suffering Jazz fans, winning wasn't one of them.

In a game that wasn't decided until the final half-minute, the Jazz rallied but fell to the Spurs 112-105, and extended their season-worst losing streak to six games.

"There's no moral victories in my mind," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said.

But there was a triple scoop of positivity as Utah fought back from a 19-point deficit and got within four with 22.5 seconds remaining before the NBA's best team wrapped things up.

Despite the defeat, the Jazz played with energy, they showed fight, and they actually outscored an opponent in a quarter.

The energy and effort parts seemingly hadn't happened since Utah last played at EnergySolutions Arena and beat Cleveland here two weeks ago.

And the Jazz had gone 15 quarters in a row without scoring more points than their foes — while being on the short end in 14 periods — until the fourth stanza against the Spurs.

"At least I thought our guys played much harder than what we had been," Sloan said. "They put themselves in position to have a possibility to win."

Though their defense struggled against the versatile and deep Spurs, the Jazz had big-time performances that helped them fight back after being throttled the night before by 29 points against the Lakers.

Deron Williams turned in a season-high 39 points, including 29 in the second half, despite playing with a hyperextended right wrist.

Al Jefferson contributed a solid 22 points and nine rebounds, and the bench gave a key spark in the second half. C.J. Miles, after one start, resumed his reserve role with 13 points, while backup point guard Earl Watson had three alley-oop assists, including a pair to Jeremy Evans (seven points).

Watson thought the Jazz "left it all on the court," but a loss that matched Utah's longest losing streak since December 2007 still stung in the immediate aftermath.

"Right now, the loss hurts worse, so it's hard to look at it and try to pick out something (good)," Watson said. "It's tough to try to have some type of way to look at the game and take a positive out of it."