Utah Jazz vow to keep fighting

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The slumping Utah Jazz won't be going to the playoffs this postseason.

They've lost seven straight games, and they're heading into a matchup with the Kings that on paper appears to be their last legitimate shot of winning in their final six contests of the 2010-11 season.

For Al Jefferson, this is a familiar predicament. In some ways. In other ways, it isn't.

Big Al's teams in Boston and Minnesota missed the playoffs the past five years, so he's used to watching contenders duke it out on TV in late April, May and June.

But as disappointed as he is that the Jazz won't be among that group battling for a championship, he's hopeful that Utah's postseason absence is a short one.

That hope makes the Jazz's predicament feel unlike his previous teams' plights.

"This situation here is a lot different than the last three, four years," Jefferson said. "We're on the outside looking in right now, but we're still fighting for something. We're fighting to get this team back on the right track for next season."

Jefferson said that prior to the Jazz's loss to the Lakers on Friday night, and his team went out and showed that fight early on against the two-time defending NBA champions before foul problems, a lack of depth and Kobe Bryant's crew did Utah in.

Utah hasn't had much luck lately, but its players haven't stopped trying — something Jefferson preaches and appreciates.

And he believes that's the attitude the short-handed Jazz — who traveled to Sacramento without injured Andrei Kirilenko (knee), Raja Bell (foot), Ronnie Price (leg) and Mehmet Okur (back) — will take into the final six games beginning this afternoon against the Kings.

"The situation I was in, it was like, 'Let's hurry and get these days over and just move on,'" Jefferson said. "Here it's kind of like everybody is still fighting for something, still fighting to rebuild, fighting just to finish the season off on a good note.

"And," he added, "that's a good thing because it's so easy right now to kind of like just throw your hands up in the air and give up. But I don't see that with this team. Everybody's still coming out to fight hard and try to win games."

The team remains frustrated that it can't manage to put more notches in the W column, though.