Utah Jazz: Team completes sweep of Spurs

SAN ANTONIO — No asterisk this time.

Instead, it was a whole bunch of notable achievements — and quite a strong finish — for the Jazz in a 105-98 victory at San Antonio on Wednesday night.

"We just stayed poised," power forward Carlos Boozer said.

"The biggest thing is we held our composure," Boozer added. "We had enough of a cushion at the end of the game that we only had to make four or five plays, and we did."

Boozer had a game-high 31 points and game-high 13 rebounds while Deron Williams had 18 points and a game-high 10 assists as the Jazz opened the second half of their 2009-10 NBA by sweeping a series from the Spurs for the first time since the 1993-94 season.

Andrei Kirilenko added a season-high 26 points while also shooting 11-for-15 from the field, grabbing eight rebounds, making two steals and blocking a shot as 24-18 Utah also won a regular-season series against San Antonio for the first time since 1997-98.

The first time Utah won at San Antonio this season, back in November, stars Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were out with injuries.

But there was nothing to soften the meaning of Wednesday's win, the Jazz's sixth overall in their last eight outings.

Utah even held Tim Duncan to just 14 points, leaving the Spurs star one point short of becoming the 35th player in NBA history with 20,000 or more career points.

"That," coach Jerry Sloan said, "was a great win for us."

Utah jumped out to a 12-0 lead, making good on its first five possessions and six of its initial seven as San Antonio came up dry on nine straight and failed to score for the game's first four minutes and 59 seconds.

The Jazz then withstood a 25-0 Spurs run late in the opening quarter and early in the second, heading into the break down just five points ahead at 50-45 after perhaps the wackiest opening half of the season.

Utah took a 74-70 lead into the fourth, and the Boozer-Williams-Kirilenko trio helped the Jazz protect a final-quarter lead that stood as high as 12 with just under seven minutes to go.

That advantage dwindled to as few as three after Parker hit a pair of free throws to make it 99-96 Jazz with 48.1 seconds remaining.

Utah, though, closed with 6-of-6 shooting from the free-throw line — 2-of-2 by Boozer with 30.1 seconds to go, and 4-of-4 from Williams in the final 16.3 seconds.