"It was a wonderful opportunity," Layden said. "And it was a missed opportunity."

So much so, in fact, that Sloan admits he hasn't ever watched tape of the two series-ending losses.

"I think we all tried to do as well as we could do and try to do the right thing. We didn't always bat 100 percent with that," Sloan said. "We kept trying to do the right thing. Everybody was pretty much on the same page. What can you do?"

Dwelling on it isn't Sloan's style.

"The bottom line is what can you do about it? I looked at our guys and I think to a man, everybody played as hard as they could. We lost to a team that made some great plays to beat us," he said. "That's just kind of like life. What are you going to do about it? Sit around and feel sorry for yourself. Life's pretty miserable when you're in that mode. You've got to try to pick yourself up and move forward. That's all I've known."

Assistant coach Phil Johnson agrees.

"Yeah it would have been nice to win, but you get a chance to play there. Everybody always talks about the winners so much but it's a great experience to play in it," Johnson said. "They don't remember the second-place team that much, but to me you get an opportunity to play that's huge."

Layden considers it a "monumental task" just to reach the finals. There are several franchises, he said, that haven't had the opportunity.

"The excitement here in the city and with our fans was really just an experience to remember for a lifetime," Layden said. "I don't know what to compare it to in other sports. There's different breakthroughs, whether you get to the World Series or Super Bowl."

Playing for a world's championship, noted Sloan, was an obvious thrill for the players.

"I don't know how much more exciting it can get," he said.

The enthusiasm was evident in 1997 when Stockton put the Jazz into the finals for the first time with a buzzer-beating shot in Houston. The basket in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals led to a memorable on-court embrace featuring Stockton, Malone and Hornacek.

"That was a great time in my basketball career," Hornacek said. " ... The excitement that we finally made it to the NBA Finals."

It was enough to bring the normally stalwart Stockton out of his conservative shell — albeit for just a few minutes.

"It's a real compliment that he was able to keep his emotions in check," Scott Layden said. "Then when you saw him getting excited, it showed how monumental it was at that time.

"And yet, when we didn't win, he's the type of guy that's devastated in losing," he said.

Layden remembers walking back to the locker room that night and approaching second-year center Greg Ostertag, telling the youngster he had "no idea how hard this is" to reach the NBA finals.

"You're in this business for so long and you really don't get many chances," Johnson said. "The first time we went, it's an amazing experience because that's ultimately what you play for and get a chance to play. It was a great team we played and came up short. But it was still a great, great experience."

So, too, was the repeat trip.

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E-mail: dirk@desnews.com