Utah Jazz: A step forward? There's still lots of room for improvement

As general manager Kevin O'Connor does the math, the Jazz are even.

Sixty victories in the 2006-07 season — 51 in the regular season, nine in the playoffs. Sixty in the just-concluded 2007-08 season — 54 in the regular season, six in the playoffs.

No better, but no worse.

Not everyone, however, sees it that way.

The morning after his Jazz were eliminated from the 2008 NBA playoffs with a 4-2 Western Conference semifinals series loss to Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, coach Jerry Sloan — of all people — crunches the numbers and feels pretty positive about the baby-step progress they represent.

"We won, what, 54 games? That's an improvement over where we were a year ago," said Sloan, whose club made it to the '07 Western Conference finals. "Obviously we didn't get through the second level of the playoffs, but ... it could have gone either way.

"So I think they made tremendous strides," Sloan added as his still-maturing crew cleaned lockers Saturday morning. "They're young, and that's important. That's the exciting thing about it."

Point guard Deron Williams looks at the numbers but sees things adding up differently.

"We won more games during the regular season," Williams said, "but, at the same time, we exited earlier. It was frustrating.

"We felt we had a great team," he added the day after his third NBA season concluded. "We had a championship-caliber team. It just didn't really come together for us in the playoffs like we'd like to."

Slow starts, especially against the Lakers. Scoring issues for All-Star Carlos Boozer, both in the semifinal against L.A. and in opening-round play against Houston. A decided lack of defense, especially in Friday's 108-105 Game 6 loss.

So much did go so wrong for the Jazz.

Sloan, for all of his uncharacteristic enthusiasm, acknowledges as much.

"Obviously, (Friday) night left a bitter taste in my mouth, the way we started off the ball game," he said after having endured watching the Lakers build a 19-point halftime lead. "But there were some positives from it. We did fight back.

"I thought they did a terrific job," Sloan added, "if you look at the overall picture, not look at (just Friday)."

Yet there is, he readily admits, much room for improvement.

"Obviously we've got to be a better defensive team," Sloan said. "We've got to be a team that can stand up — when things get a little tough, continue to fight through that. I thought (Friday) night, in the second half, we had that.