Utah Jazz Notes

It wouldn’t have mattered if the Jazz had kept pulling away in the fourth quarter and beaten the Mavericks by 25 or if they blew all of their 16-point lead before finding a way late. The only thing critical was to leave American Airlines Center with a victory.

It would have been inspirational coming off Monday’s embarrassment against Houston. Redemptive, too. It would have softened the edge for everyone coming to EnergySolutions Arena for Thursday’s game against San Antonio.

(Deron Williams even underscored Tuesday’s importance, with this tweet: “On the way to the Dallas game!!! Need this win . . . Bad.” History was thus made on two fronts: the first must-win fourth game of a season and first ever declared such via Twitter.)

The Jazz took a 15-point lead into the fourth quarter, in a building where they’ve won just twice in 14 tries, before the Mavericks stormed back. In short, Dirk Nowitzki brought out a flame-thrower . . . and the Jazz tried to put out the fire with a wet paper towel.

Nowitzki scored 29 points in the fourth quarter, only four points shy of the NBA record held by Carmelo Anthony and George Gervin. Most alarming was the resistance the Jazz offered as Nowitzki broke Mark Aguirre’s franchise record of 24 points in a quarter.

Jazz coach Jerry Sloan opted to have Mehmet Okur guard Nowitzki primarily in the quarter, even though as Williams noted afterward, Okur has been playing with a bad leg since suffering a mildly sprained knee and ankle in Denver.

Okur was badly overmatched, with no play symbolizing it more than when he stood up Nowitzki (who was looking to lean in for a foul call) at the three-point arc only to get caught flat-footed as Nowitzki cut quickly for a layup off a give-and-go with Jason Kidd.

For all the available options to slowing a player on an (admittedly) unstoppable roll, the Jazz seemingly explored few alternatives, not even mustering a token hard foul.

They stuck with Okur and Carlos Boozer on Nowitzki, even with Andrei Kirilenko and Paul Millsap offering other options. Kyrylo Fesenko even matched up against Nowitzki in the first half and seemed to frustrate him with his size and physicality.

The Jazz also opted not to double-team Nowitzki upon catching the ball or all-out denying him the ball in the first place. Sloan said he thought the Jazz would leave shooters open by double-teaming and that Nowitzki would get the ball no matter how much denying.

“We put Memo on him, and I don’t think we did a very good job,” Sloan said. “He was sensational, made every basket or got to the free-throw line. But the most important thing he did was he was able to take the ball to the basket.”

Okur said he could have done more to try to deny Nowitzki the ball and that he was making a concerted effort to pressure Nowitzki at the top of the floor, to avoid giving him open looks at the kind of jumpers he torched the Jazz with last season.

That opened up the Jazz, however, to a host of layups and trips to the foul line as Nowitzki drove to the basket. Nowitzki went 14-for-14 at the line in the fourth quarter.

The Jazz additionally could have considered a zone defense, to at least deny Nowitzki those easy drives down the lane. They could have given Nowitzki different looks with different defenders, hanging and draping themselves all over the former NBA MVP.

Anything to break his rhythm, including calling timeouts. In contrast to Dallas coach Rick Carlisle, who called one timeout Tuesday after his team gave up consecutive baskets, Sloan is not predisposed the same way.

It didn’t take long for the Mavericks to make it a single-digit game, then tie the score and then take the lead behind Nowitzki. The Jazz gave up 44 points in the fourth quarter and went from 16 points ahead to 11 points down.

“We’ve got to figure out how to play 48 minutes of basketball,” Deron Williams said. “Not 42, not 43. Forty-eight. We had chances, we had them down 15. We just had to get some stops and couldn’t do it.”

There’s going to be a segment of fans who are absolutely enraged that the Jazz let slip a game that could have been such a confidence booster as well as a segment that takes away a moral victory given the effort following Monday’s debacle.

“We fought, no question about that,” Boozer said. “We definitely fought. But it’s tough when you still come up short and you don’t win.”

--Ross Siler

Some thoughts on the Jazz's fourth-quarter meltdown against Houston, which outscored Utah 33-16 over the final 10:20 of its victory Monday night at EnergySolutions Arena:

The first number that leaps off the box score: Carlos Boozer went 1-for-6 from the field, meaning he is 4-for-20 in the Jazz's two losses this season.

I don't know if Boozer and his teammates can make this rocky marriage work for another season or not, but I know when Boozer takes fewer shots than Ronnie Brewer (nine) and nearly as many as Wesley Mathews (five), the Jazz aren't going to win many games.

Certainly Boozer must be more efficient. But he also has to get the ball in scoring position and then do something productive with it.  If he can't or won't, the Jazz have no inside presence, even against a team like the Rockets, who because of Yao Ming's season-ending injury play four forwards and a point guard most of the time.

Andrei Kirilenko, you say?

While Boozer had one of the worst double-doubles in franchise history in the opening loss at Denver -- 12 points and 11 rebounds on 3-for-14 shooting -- Kirilenko's numbers against Houston are similarly decent.

He finished with 18 points, seven rebounds and three blocked shots.

But ...

In the fourth quarter, when the Rockets bumped their lead from 87-80 to 102-86, Kirilenko squeezed off four shots -- all from at least 18 feet, none of them wide-open and  one from the three-point line. (Kirilenko made 27 percent of his three-pointers last season).

Kirilenko made one fourth-quarter jumper against the Rockets but then missed missed three in a row.

Remember, Boozer took six shots in over 31 minutes. Kirilenko took four from the perimeter during a 15-4 run by the Rockets.

The next time coach Jerry Sloan warns everyone about looking at a box score and deciding who played well strictly because of the numbers they produce, this kind of performance is exactly what he's discussing.

--Steve Luhm

Some other things from Monday’s loss to Houston, a game in which eight Rockets players scored in double figures - - Trevor Ariza actually finished 11 points below his season average - - and Houston went 10 of 19 from three-point range:

Undrafted rookie Wesley Matthews scored his first NBA points on a second-quarter layup on the break. Matthews finished with six points in 16 minutes, seeing extended action with Ronnie Brewer and Ronnie Price both in foul trouble in the third quarter.

It’s worth noting that Matthews needs just 3,648 more points to match his father, Wes, who played nine seasons in the NBA, including on back-to-back Lakers championship teams in the 1980s.

Mehmet Okur had 21 points in 36 minutes in his return from a mildly sprained left ankle and knee. Okur, however, was called for two traveling violations and one offensive foul, all by the same referee, Mark Lindsay.

Okur gave a dismissive wave in Lindsay’s direction after he returned to the defensive end following the offensive foul. Deron Williams also was not pleased by the officiating, believing he was fouled on a number of drives in which no whistle was blown.

Andrei Kirilenko had 18 points and seven rebounds and hit what looked like another game-turning play to end the third quarter when he drilled a jumper off a kickout from Williams. The referees reviewed the play, however, and ruled it a two-point shot.

Williams got kicked in the shin in the first quarter, something to keep an eye on for the second game of a back-to-back set tonight.

Kyrylo Fesenko had little opportunity to build on his 10-point effort against the Clippers. He didn’t get into the game until the final 2:07 of garbage time and dunked for his only two points of the game. Fesenko looked disappointed to be stuck on the bench.

You could claim that the Jazz improved defensively. After giving up 60 points in the first half Friday against the Clippers, the Jazz cut that number down to 54 on Monday. Of course, that preceded a 59-point second half and 34-point fourth quarter.

--Ross Siler

If the Jazz are considering making a move after Monday’s debacle against Houston, my advice would be sooner rather than later. They’re facing the distinct possibility of a 1-4 start, with a back-to-back game Tuesday at Dallas, followed by San Antonio at home Thursday.

Although they’ll play host to Sacramento on Saturday - - a likely victory against one of the NBA’s worst teams - - the Jazz will leave on a four-game Eastern Conference trip after that, which includes stops in Boston and Cleveland.

Put simply, it’s going to be tough sledding for the Jazz, who last started 1-4 in 2002-03. Underscoring the urgency is the fact that they have to make the most of November, especially the season-long six-game homestand at the end of the month.

The way the Jazz unraveled in the fourth quarter Monday was alarming. For a team whose core has been together as long as the Jazz’s, there was seemingly zero chemistry. Deron Williams described the Jazz’s offense as stagnant, the team as lacking energy.

That’s all reflected in the box score, where the Jazz had 18 assists as a team against 19 turnovers. In other words, the Jazz managed to assist on average of just 4.5 baskets a quarter.  The Rockets by comparison had 29 assists against 14 turnovers.

The Jazz have given up 108.3 points on average these first three games, with Carlos Boozer going 13 for 42 (31.0 percent). Jerry Sloan all but admitted after the game that Boozer’s return has been a distraction - - it’s all in Tuesday’s paper.

It’s getting harder and harder to argue that a trade wouldn’t be in the best interest of both Boozer and the Jazz, something that I’ve written in this space a multitude of times since Boozer first expressed his love for Chicago and Miami this summer.

Sloan, meanwhile, called out his team in so many ways after the game, I couldn’t even get them all in my game story.

“In our scouting report this morning, we said, ‘You don’t take these guys lightly because they’re good, they’re playing hard and they have no issues,’” Sloan said. “You see them play and watch them play, they’re having fun, and we’re struggling.

“If we don’t get a call in our direction, we feel like the world’s against us and then we make two or three more mistakes. So we’ve got to fight through that. See who we are.”

Sloan was asked to clarify his remarks about taking the Rockets lightly.

“Did you just see them run by us?” Sloan said. “How many times did they dribble past whoever theywanted to dribble past? I mean, if you aren’t going to defend, it’s pretty tough to have a chance to win.”

From the beginning, Sloan said, the Jazz cared only about stopping their own man, rather than helping out each other, on defense. “That’s not winning basketball, that’s just taking your paycheck and going home,” Sloan said.

I asked Sloan how disappointed he was that when the Rockets made their fourth-quarter push, the Jazz failed to respond.

“Well, we couldn’t keep them in front of us,” Sloan said. “I mean, what am I supposed to go guard them? Hell, no, I couldn’t guard them, and neither did we. 

“When then drove by us, they’d find somebody open and they’d make a pass for an easy shot and that’s what we had. That’s basketball at its best, and they showed us what it’s like.”

More on the defensive shortcomings: “If you’re looking at a guy’s rear end all night, how can you say that’s good defense? And that’s what we looked at as the guys drove by us - - we got a good look at their rear ends and that doesn’t give you much of a chance to stop them.”

--Ross Siler

A quick note as the Jazz and Rockets are about to start.

I just heard that former University of Utah star Luke Nevill has sent his paper work to the NBA Developmental League office and, barring unforeseen circumstances, will start the season with the Utah Flash.

Nevill will join former BYU star Lee Cummard on the Flash's roster.

-- Steve Luhm