If your mom told you to read books when you were a kid, it might have done more than make you smart. It might have helped your game. At least that's what Andrei Kirilenko said after Thursday night's Jazz win over Houston.

Kirilenko, who had been a punchline to a joke over the last part of the regular season, and, at times, in the playoffs, when it came to his off-target shooting, blew up in Game 6 against the Rockets. He scored 14 points, a major accomplishment, and made a general nuisance out of himself at the defensive end.

His secret?

Reading books.

He said he hasn't been shooting before games of late, he's been cracking open his paperbacks.

"I didn't do anything extra," he said. "Just trying not to think about basketball too much."

It's interesting that when word came out on Wednesday of a forthcoming academic study of NBA referees over a 13-season span and that study revealed a kind of subconscious racial bias in the way white and black officials made their calls on black and white players, so many people automatically dismissed it without even reading the study or familiarizing themselves with its methodology.

I have no clue if the study is valid.

I do know The New York Times had three experts examine the paper, completed by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell grad student, as well as examine a separate study done by the NBA that found there was no bias, and those experts determined the academic argument to be "far more sound."

Whatever that means.

Whose research is more accurate, I don't know. What the significance is of such research, I don't know. But I do know that many people don't want to believe such bias exists. And they react negatively toward such a study before checking out the data.

That reaction indicates something, and I don't think it's a positive.

En route back from Houston, I came across a quote by Hall of Fame golfer Lee Trevino that went like this:

"You can make a lot of money in this game. Just ask my two ex-wives. Both of them are so rich that neither of their husbands work."

With that already committed to memory, I subsequently read in The Sporting News that, as they wrote it, "Michael Jordan's pending divorce from his wife of nearly 18 years, Juanita Vanoy, could cost the man in excess of $150 million, according to Forbes magazine."

Well. Two words of advice, then:

Marry smart.

And, gentlemen, treat your wife right.

And while you're at it, remember another famous quote:

"Happy wife, happy life."

Cheaper life, too.

    I've repeatedly stood up for fans in Utah, for their passion for and knowledge of sports and the teams they follow.

    But the last two Jazz games here stirred one complaint: Some Jazz fans whine about and boo every call by the refs. Every one of them.

    If the whistle blows and it goes against the home team, it is met with outrage, whether or not it was correct. Believe it or not, some of them are, indeed, correct.

    I've gone to sporting events in many different cities, but the abundance of rancor aimed at the refs here exceeds any other place I've been.

    And I grew up near Philly.

    Officials, at times, are influenced by fans, but less so when those fans lose credibility in their eyes by reacting so strongly to every call, even the accurate ones. A greater impact could be achieved with more selective booing, and a little less whining.

The crowd showed well on Thursday night for Game 3, an 81-67 Jazz victory, when its team needed it the most. The signage came out, the yelling reverberated off the walls, off the floor, off the ceiling, off the steel girders, just like the old days.
No doubt, the fans were nervous — not knowing quite what to expect from their team, down 0-2 and all coming in, and slightly listing. And not exactly sure whether to cheer or boo their own guys.
Well, they cheered, and cheered, and cheered.
"The crowd was great," Matt Harpring said. "We needed them tonight."

A personal note here.

As most of the people on The Tribune's sports staff will tell you, right now is the busiest time on our calendar. When the Jazz make the playoffs, we happily go insane.

Over the past few days, I've been to Houston, by way of Phoenix and San Antonio, for Games 1 and 2, and back to Salt Lake, by way of Denver. I'll write columns for every game of this series, and any subsequent series, should they come. I'll be back in Houston on Monday, and write most non-game days, too.

In the middle of all that, I decided to travel to Boise on Wednesday night to watch my oldest daughter play her last college tennis match at the WAC Championships, along with another daughter, who is a freshman. Also, that second daughter's birthday is Wednesday.

Then, I'll return to Salt Lake for Game 3 this afternoon, write off of that game, and, then, write a live column from Game 4 on Saturday, which happens to be my 24th wedding anniversary. After that, if necessary, I'll head back to Houston after Game 4 for Game 5, and so on.

That's the way it is this time of year.

But, if the Jazz force a Game 7 in Houston the following Saturday, forget about it.

I ain't going.

That's my oldest daughter's college graduation ceremony here. And that I won't miss.

You have to respect an athlete who articulates a need, even tritely and dogmatically, and, then, goes out and fills it.

That's exactly what Carlos Boozer did after Game 1 of the Jazz's first-round playoff series with Houston. In that loss, the Jazz hung tough for a while, shooting well enough to hold a lead. But, then, the wheels spun off their bus by way of bad aim.

Boozer, who made 4 of 17 field-goal attempts, repeated a thousand times after the loss what the Jazz had to do: "We need to make our shots. Just make our shots."

He was condescendingly snippy in reciting that charge again and again, and ultimately shut down his postgame interview session when fairly asked about Yao Ming's adverse effect on his accuracy.

But, in Game 2, Boozer followed his own advice, hitting 17 of 30 shots and scoring 41 points for the Jazz, even when Yao lumbered close by.

The Jazz lost again, but Boozer's actions spoke louder than his words -- and he backed them up, clear across a threshold where his tired mantra took on newly appreciated meaning.