Utah Jazz like 2nd half

After giving up 63 points in the first half of their 100-89 win Thursday, the Jazz held Portland to 26 second-half points and forced the Trail Blazers into four shot-clock violation turnovers after halftime.

Scary consequences from their sluggish play by Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, backup point guard Brevin Knight suggested, played a major role in the big turnaround.

"That was Jerry's talking at halftime. I think a lot of us started to think, 'Shoot, we got to go to practice tomorrow. What's practice going to be like?'" he said, smiling. "So, we better go out and here and put forth a better effort and we did.

"Guys just got after their guy. We just became a lot more active. That kind of showed us what we have to do to be successful. Scoring points will be fine for us. It's, 'Can we stop people?'"