Or, as shooting guard Ronnie Brewer put it, "We've just to go find a way to win, because we can't do anything if other guys are hurt."

At least Sloan was encouraged by the intensity of play he saw in Cleveland.

"Hopefully we learned how to play a little harder," he said there. "If we had played this hard on the other three games that we lost, I think we would have been okay.

"But when everybody always beats us in the fourth quarter, something's wrong about your concentration and your ability to respond to tough basketball.

"That's what a lot of teams do: They win games in the fourth quarter because they're smart and they know what they're doing and they don't make mistakes," Sloan added. "Anybody can play for 46 minutes. I've always said that. You have to be a horse to play the last two, and that's what's important."

Even when three chief horses are missing from the stable, the failure to finish is frustrating indeed to some who've been there for it all.

"(Frustrating's) not even the word," Boozer said. "I mean, I know we've got people out. (But) I don't have to use any excuses. I think we had chances to win every game we lost on this trip, but we didn't."

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com