Jazz win, Sonics whine

Like the wife who won't get off your back about taking out the trash, or the husband who just doesn't understand why 20 pairs of shoes in the closet simply are not enough, the Jazz so often find something to complain about.

Officiating. Each other's play. The weather.

Wednesday, however, the Seattle SuperSonics were the ones whining after Utah beat them 94-83 in front of a near-sellout crowd of 19,666 at the Delta Center.

Mostly, it was about the refs.

"I don't know how you're going to beat a team when they're marching to the free-throw line at least 10 times a quarter," Sonics coach Nate McMillan said. "This team (Utah) shot 38 free throws — way too many.

"As far as the calls that were made, they got a lot of touch calls — and were grabbing and holding, I think, more than we were," McMillan added. "The calls weren't the same on both ends of the floor."

An officiating crew of Ronnie Nunn, Nolan Fine and Bill Spooner did whistle the Sonics for 29 personal fouls, six more than the Jazz. And the Jazz did shoot 38 freebies, making 31, while Seattle hit only 20-of-25.

On the surface, that really doesn't seem so bad. But boy did it ever upset the grouchier-than-Grinch Sonics.

"They got a lead on us; we couldn't get back into the game," Seattle forward Rashard Lewis said. "Somebody was calling a foul on us each time down the court.

"That's what really kept us out of it."

Never mind that the Jazz out-rebounded the Sonics 49-35, with Andrei Kirilenko pulling down 11 boards, Karl Malone 10, Greg Ostertag nine and even Calbert Cheaney eight.

Forget that Malone also had a team-high 23 points.

Discount the fact that DeShawn Stevenson, again making the most of his extra minutes while usual starter Matt Harpring sat out a second straight game with his sprained right ankle, scored 13 off the bench on 6-of-7 shooting while also helping keep new Sonics All-Star Ray Allen at bay. Allen scored a team-high 24 points but shot only 1-of-10 from 3-point range.

None of that seemed to matter to the 28-32 Sonics, who had a five-game winning streak come to an end as the 35-25 Jazz won for the second straight time.

"It's frustrating, because you know that you are in the game, and you still have a chance to win it when you're only down by 10," Lewis said. "You try to get back in it — and then the refs take you right out of it and take your momentum away."