Utah Jazz fall into eighth place

SAN ANTONIO — Effort, from some, was there.

But the result wasn't, leaving the Jazz dumbfounded as their season continues to crumble.

San Antonio — without injured guard Manu Ginobili, and with star big man Tim Duncan hobbling — beat Utah 105-99 on Friday, marking the Jazz's fifth loss in their last six games.

Combined with a Dallas victory over New Orleans, that knocked the Jazz out of a tie for seventh with the Mavericks and alone — by a full game — into the NBA Western Conference's eighth and final playoff position.

It was also Utah's 23rd consecutive loss in San Antonio, where the Jazz haven't won since February 1999.

For that, point guard Deron Williams suggested, the Jazz have only themselves to blame.

"We put ourselves in this position," he said. "Nobody else did.

"One day we can play great, the next day we can stink it up. It's our identity right now, which is not a good identity to have.

"So we've got to keep fighting, stay together. Especially in the road, you've got to stay together as a team," Williams added after Utah also fell to 15-25 away from home, including 1-11 at the West's top seven. "If something bad happens, we can't start pointing the blame.

"Everybody's got to man up and play better, from me to the last guy."

Williams had a 25-point, 10-assist double-double and center Mehmet Okur a 22-point, 10-rebound double-double as the Jazz fell to 47-32.

But Andrei Kirilenko, starting a third straight game at small forward in place of the injured C.J. Miles, shot 1-for-9 and had two rebounds in 27 minutes while power forward Carlos Boozer missed eight of his 12 field shots.

"That happens ... and it's something I don't like to see," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said of the pair's shooting woes.

"Sometimes you get in a position thinking, 'I'll work myself out of this through scoring,' " he added. "That's one of the things our team has a tendency to do, because we're pretty much all made up (of) people that need to score. I don't hear too many observations in the huddle that say, 'We've got to make stops.' "

Kirilenko missed all five of his shots and Boozer his four during a first half in which Utah trailed by as many as 15.

"The first half was tough," Boozer said, "but the second half I thought I played a lot better. More aggressive. Did better on both sides of the ball."

The Jazz did tie the game in the third quarter, once at 57 after an Okur tip-in of a Kirilenko miss and again at 69 after two Kyle Korver free throws.

But the 51-28 Spurs went into the fourth up five, and led by two or more throughout the final quarter.

Utah lengthened the game with timeouts and fouls, and did get to within four three different times in the final 11.9 seconds.