Utah Jazz: Remember when — Jazz reflect on back-to-back appearances in NBA finals

It's now been a decade since the Utah Jazz participated in the NBA finals. Back-to-back trips to the championship series ended with setbacks to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in six games.

The last one, in 1998, concluded in dramatic fashion with Jordan stealing the ball away from Karl Malone and hitting a well-documented game-winning shot in Salt Lake City.

"It was an exciting time. We had veteran players who worked for years trying to get to that point and finally got there," recalls former Jazz guard Jeff Hornacek. "The first time (in 1997) I thought they were the better team. The second time I thought we were the better team.

"We were playing great," he said. "We were really clicking towards the end of the season."

Utah and Chicago finished the 1998 regular season with 62-20 records. The Jazz, however, secured homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs by sweeping the season series with the Bulls.

They capitalized on it and dispatched the Houston Rockets (3-2), San Antonio Spurs (4-1) and Los Angeles Lakers (4-0) before advancing to a highly anticipated NBA finals rematch with the Bulls.

The latter, however, followed a 10-day wait. That's how long the Jazz were idle after sweeping the Lakers and waiting for the Bulls to finish a seven-game series against the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals.

The delay proved costly.

Though the Jazz eventually got back to playing well, Hornacek estimates it was about 96 percent of their previous level.

"And that little four percent gets you against Jordan and those guys," he said.

It left the Jazz with unfulfilled title hopes.

"I think our guys were just as excited going the second time, believing they could win it," said head coach Jerry Sloan, who acknowledged the long layoff took its toll. "We were playing awfully well before that. I think that probably set us back some. The results were we still lost and that's the hard part."

Scott Layden, who was Utah's vice president of basketball operations at the time, said it was especially difficult on Larry H. Miller, Frank Layden, Karl Malone, John Stockton and Sloan.

"They put so much into winning," he explained while noting that it's something the Jazz, as a whole, have always been about.