Certainly Utah isn't the only place where things can turn nasty. In Dallas, fans unmercifully mocked former Jazz guard John Starks after he had undergone testicular surgery. In Philadelphia, fans have been known to boo their own team as loudly as opponents. In Washington, one fan spent years behind the visiting bench, incessantly heckling and howling throughout timeouts. Sacramento fans clang deafening cowbells through timeouts to disrupt strategy.

There's little doubt the Jazz crowd can be nasty. That was proven last November when the Lakers first visited Salt Lake. As popular ex-Jazz guard Derek Fisher was introduced, he was lustily booed — an action Fisher said shook and hurt him.

He had been released by the Jazz last summer so he could seek the best possible care for his daughter, who had a cancerous tumor in her eye. Soon he was playing in L.A. Still, to assume Fisher would risk his daughter's welfare on playing for the Lakers is a stretch. Perhaps he did want to get out of Utah, yet and at the same time realized his daughter could get better medical treatment in L.A.

Either way, he didn't deserve the jeers.

In the mid-90s, when John Lucas was coaching the Spurs, his team was in Salt Lake. A courtside fan, attending with his son, was ridiculing Lucas, a former drug and alcohol addict. After several minutes of abuse, Lucas walked toward the end of the bench and said in his raspy voice, "Why don't you show your son how to be a man?"

The fan fell silent the rest of the night.

Things are bound to be louder tonight than they were in Los Angeles. ESA is a house built for noise and Jazz fans can provide it.

That's fine, just so they understand the difference between loud and loutish.

And nobody needs reminding what it means to be a man.

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E-mail: rock@desnews.com