Utah Jazz: Team rallies, knocks off Spurs in final seconds

Jerry Sloan wasn't about to stop exhaling.

"You hold your breath," he said, "you could die."

But the Jazz coach did admit to some decidedly anxious moments late in Utah's 104-101 win over San Antonio on Monday night, especially when Tony Parker and Matt Bonner of the Spurs took late-game shots that could have doomed his club.

Both rimmed out, though, and that — combined with Deron Williams' go-ahead jumper, a key rebound and two insurance free throws from Mehmet Okur and Carlos Boozer's team-high 27 points — allowed the Jazz to beat San Antonio in front of a sparse crowd of 17,565 at EnergySolutions Arena.

"I'm just proud of the fact our guys fought back and really had a nice run there to get a nice lead," said Sloan, whose Jazz went from 15 points down early in the second quarter to as many as 12 up in the final minute of the third quarter.

"I'm really excited for our players," added Sloan, who had all five starters and sub C.J. Miles (10 points) score in double figures.

"I don't get that excited very often. I was excited for them tonight, because I think they needed that to try to move forward with the way we've been trying to play."

The victory was 12-8 Utah's fifth in its last six games and eighth in its last 10.

Moreover, it's the third time in three tries this season that the Jazz have beaten a team that for the longest time was their nemesis — marking the first time since 1997-98 NBA season Utah will take a series from San Antonio.

And this time there's no asterisk, like when the Jazz beat the Spurs last Nov. 19 to break a 20-game regular-season losing streak in San Antonio — but both Parker and Manu Ginobili sat out with injuries.

"Obviously they're a team that's dominated us over the years," Boozer said of the Spurs, who also owned an 18-game win streak over the Jazz in the early to mid 2000s. "But the biggest thing is for us is that we're getting better right now."

The Jazz needed to improve vastly following a first half Monday in which Williams struggled with 1-for-7 shooting from the field and Tim Duncan scored 15 of his 23 points.

They did that in a 37-19 third quarter, and went into the fourth up 86-76.