Utah Jazz Notes

Injured Jazz guard C.J. Miles expects to play in about two weeks, he said before the Jazz practiced on Monday morning.

Miles had the cast removed from his surgically-repaired thumb last week, when the Jazz went to New York and started a four-game trip against the Knicks.

"They told me to take it easy -- don't rush into anything, let it heal," he said. "I'm doing some little rehab exercises they gave me and I'm still doing the same on-court stuff for now. Hopefully within the next week or so I'll be able to really get into some practice. I want to practice again."

If Miles can follow the script without suffering any setbacks, he could return in time for a Dec. 4 game against Indiana.

Asked if he thought about accelerating the process, Miles laughed and said, "It's tempting. But the first thing the [doctor] said when he took the cast off was, 'Don't do anything stupid.' So I'm restraining myself."

Miles left the Jazz during the trip and went home to Dallas, where he visited family and friends. He flew home Sunday.

"I just went down there and saw everybody," he said. "I ate, basically. [That's] what I did."


-- Steve Luhm

I'm heading over to the Jazz's Monday morning practice in a few minutes and will update their situation a little later today.

I know one player who will be there.

C.J. Miles was on my flight from Dallas to Salt Lake City on Sunday. I was coming back from helping cover the Utah-TCU football football game. The Horned Frogs were extremely impressive. They have to be one of the top five teams in the country.

Anyway ...

Miles had his injured thumb examined and hard cast removed last week in New York, where the Jazz started a four-game trip. He must have been allowed to leave the team for a few days at the end of the trip to visit his family and friends in Dallas.

The big story involving the Jazz, however, will be the status of Deron Williams. He left the team before games at Philadelphia and Cleveland because of a health issue involving one of his kids.

In his absence, rookie Eric Maynor did a nice job. He quarterbacked the Jazz to a victory over the 76ers and a near-miss at Cleveland. He didn't score quite like Milwaukee rookie Brandon Jennings -- good grief --  but once again it looks like the Jazz might have found a player with a future deep in the first round of the draft.

-- Steve Luhm

You can’t take that shot, the 28-foot three-pointer Andrei Kirilenko launched off an inbounds play with 28.8 seconds left in Saturday’s game and the Jazz trailing by two.

You have to get a quality possession somehow, produce either a layup, an open jumper or a trip to the foul line. Not a prayer from well beyond the three-point arc with 22 seconds left on the shot clock as Kirilenko did.

“We had a couple different options, but they did a good job on us,” Carlos Boozer said. “So I came back and got it, got it to A.K. and if he hit it, we go up by one. If we missed it, we’re down by two.

“He made his own decision. It was a good shot because there was nobody on him. But then we had to foul and it was a free-throw game after that.”

There’s no way Kirilenko could have gotten the shot-clock situation confused because the clock reset after LeBron James’ three-point play. You can question from there whether Kirilenko thought the Jazz were down by three when it was really two.

He said the inbounds play is one the Jazz practice regularly and is designed to produce the kind of three-pointer he took. He described it as if he switched into autopilot and took the three-pointer like he has so many times in practice before.

Kirilenko, for the record, finished with 13 points, seven rebounds and five assists, though he did miss all four three-pointers he attempted. That shot brought back a lot of memories from last season’s Miami loss, though Kirilenko attacked the basket for a charge that game.

* * *

You also can’t give up a three-point play like that to James, as the Jazz did with 28.8 seconds left, putting the Cavaliers ahead 103-101. James came off a pick and stormed down the lane. Boozer arrived late and reached in for a foul as James hit a layup.

Only seconds earlier, James had split two free throws. Putting him back at the line would have tested him again. Worst-case scenario, the Jazz are down by two. Best-case scenario, the Jazz send a message and James converts one or zero free throws.

Somebody should have put James on his rear on that drive. James ended up scoring 10 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter. He was anything but the Jazz-killer, however, from previous seasons.

* * *

Other than that, the Jazz should be proud of the way they came back against the Cavaliers. They could have been blown out when they trailed by 16 only 2 1-2 minutes into the second quarter but rallied in the second game of a back-to-back.

There’s no guarantee the Jazz would have gone 2-2 on their trip even with Deron Williams. Without him, the Jazz should consider themselves fortunate. They went 1-4 on their first big trip last season, which included three of the same stops as this one.

* * *

I didn’t get much chance to write about the potential tying three-pointer that went to Mehmet Okur in the final seconds. My question was how much of an option was undrafted rookie Wesley Matthews, who went 3-for-3 from beyond the arc.

In fact, subtract Matthews and the Jazz went 0-for-9 on three-pointers in the game. They set up for the inbounds, with Matthews coming from the back of a line of four players and cutting to the corner closest to the inbounder.

Instead, Kirilenko looked to Okur, who was covered by Anderson Varejao at the top of the floor. Varejao gave Okur little space and Okur appeared to stumble as he tried to get open. He ended up launching an off-balance three-pointer off the back rim.

Matthews and James exchanged greetings at the final horn. Turns out, Matthews worked at one of James’ basketball camps while he was in college at Marquette.

* * *

Who would have guessed that rookie Eric Maynor would outscore James in Saturday’s loss? Maynor came in having scored 21 total points all season, but had 24 against the Cavaliers, compared with 21 for James.

Maynor was the Jazz’s best offensive threat for much of the game. He hit one nifty bank off a pick-and-roll in the second quarter as well as a jumper over Varejao. In the game’s final minute, Maynor drove for a layup that gave the Jazz a 101-100 lead.

We’ll see what happens when Ronnie Price comes back - - he’s hopeful he’ll be able to play Wednesday - - but Maynor definitely generated confidence these last two games and earned a little bit of trust from Sloan.

--Ross Siler

With some “big time” help from his teammates, Kosta Koufos was able to line up 16 tickets for family and friends as the Canton, Ohio, native and Ohio State product returned home for Saturday’s game.

It was a different homecoming for Koufos this November than last, when he made an emergency start as a 19-year-old rookie against the Cavaliers with Mehmet Okur attending to his ailing father in Turkey and Jarron Collins out with an elbow injury.

“A different perspective,” said Koufos, who has played just 25 minutes in seven games this season. “Stay focused and be ready.”

Jazz coach Jerry Sloan praised Koufos as a hard worker who has improved in his two seasons in Utah,  adding, “It’s just that being so young, trying to understand the mechanics of the game has probably slowed him down a little bit, but his work habit has not slowed down.”

“He’s big and long and he probably needs a chance to play a little bit more,” Sloan continued, “but we’re trying to win games every time we step out there and it’s not an exhibition season now. Everything’s on the line.”

Sloan talked about Koufos’ adjustment to man-to-man defense after playing zone in his lone season at Ohio State as well as the need to expand his game beyond being a pick-and-pop shooter. 

He also was asked about the difficulty in trying to develop a pair of young centers in Koufos and Kyrylo Fesenko when both are seemingly competing for the same minutes.

“The minutes are always tough, but that’s what the D-League’s about,” Sloan said, adding, “I think sometimes they think that’s a demotion. What it is is a way to try to learn how to become a better player.”

Koufos played 10 games with the D-League’s Utah Flash last season, but is unlikely to return as long as the Jazz are struggling just to field a team with 12 players in uniform. As a third-year player, Fesenko cannot be sent to the D-League.

--Ross Siler

By the end of the night, there wasn’t much space to go into detail about the second quarter of Friday’s victory over the Sixers. Make no mistake, though, it might have been the most impressive quarter of the Jazz’s season so far.

Not only did the Jazz win the quarter 34-18 to take a 64-50 lead into halftime, they did so with Ronnie Brewer playing all 12 minutes at point guard after Eric Maynor picked up his second foul in the final seconds of the first quarter.

For the rest of his career, Price can tease good friend Deron Williams about his plus-16 as a point guard, about how easy it is to engineer a 34-point quarter and about the fact he helped lead the Jazz to their highest scoring half of the season.

“I don’t know what took them so long,” Brewer joked of the position switch.

“In all reality, we played really well as a team. We got defensive stops, and on offense, we executed. We did what’s been working so long. We got the ball inside. Booz was working, Paul Millsap was working. Memo played well in there. 

“And then we played inside-out and we were knocking down shots, getting to the basket and getting to the free-throw line. Once you do that and get stops, you can build a quick lead fast.”

After two Willie Green free throws with 6:52 left, the Jazz closed the quarter on a 21-8 run. Carlos Boozer and Millsap got going inside and the Jazz picked up speed even after the Sixers called timeout after falling behind by seven.

Millsap hit a tough 17-foot step-back jumper over Elton Brand. All-world Wesley Matthews buried a three-pointer and Andrei Kirilenko drained a jumper. Following a Kirilenko tip-in and Matthews layup on the break, the Jazz owned a 60-46 lead.

“We had guys that got the ball up the floor for us and executed our offense,” Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. “It wasn’t a real pretty thing all the time. All we did was set screens, try to pass the ball to the open guy, we got easy baskets. Not so much other stuff.”

Brewer finished with 14 points, six assists and five rebounds in 40 minutes, playing every second of the first three quarters before coming out to start the fourth. Boozer had 24 points and 12 rebounds on 11-for-16 shooting, making his case for Elton Brand money this summer.

Brand went 4-for-8 in 24 minutes, had 11 points and two rebounds and was booed after missing an open 14-footer late in the first half.

Boozer noted that the Jazz were crisper offensively as far as moving the ball to the open man and that enthusiasm for sharing the ball translated to 32 assists. It was a fun victory, driven by an exceptional quarter.

“We’ve had games where we blew fourth-quarter leads by a lot, got embarrassed at home a few times, struggled on the road, so it hasn’t been fun losing,” Brewer said. “To get a win on the road, for us it’s crucial.”

* * *

All this being said, the Sixers lacked any cohesion as a team. Brand struggled all game, Samuel Dalembert picked up five fouls in 21 minutes, Andre Iguodala was 4-for-13 and Marreesse Speights finished 11 points below his season average off the bench.

We’ll see how the Jazz do Saturday against a Cleveland team coming off two huge wins over Orlando and Miami. LeBron James has torched the Jazz in his career; the only team James has a higher career scoring average against is Phoenix.

It also was shocking to see such a paltry crowd (announced 10,738) for a Friday night game in Philadelphia. The 76ers have a history of championships and great players. They aren’t the Grizzlies or Bobcats, yet their attendance is among the most dismal in the league.

* * *

If you catch to my pregame appearances on 1280 The Zone, you would have heard my prediction of a Jazz victory against all odds as well as a big game from Matthews. I just hope those guys gave me some credit before going off the air at 6 p.m. MDT, halftime in Philadelphia.

--Ross Siler