Utah Jazz: Where amazing almost happens — Jazz stage late comeback, but come up one '3' short
But for a second straight year, the lure of rest and relaxation ultimately trumped the task at hand — and a Jazz season ended in disappointment tinged with controversy.
One night after Kirilenko skipped practice and traveled to San Francisco to tend to family vacation-related visa issues, the Jazz on Friday fell 108-105 to the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 6 of their NBA Western Conference semifinal series.
The Lakers beat Utah 4-2 in the best-of-seven playoff series, leaving all members of coach Jerry Sloan's club free now to pursue their fancy.
Fishing.
Golf.
All the ritz and glitz the south of France — Kirilenko's preferred destination — has to offer.
"It looked like if we could just get a little run, I thought we could get back in the ballgame," Sloan said. "But we couldn't settle down. We were fighting against ourselves a little bit."
Until, that is, the very end.
Before all was done, the Jazz did throw something of a fit, with not everyone, apparently, quite ready to part ways for the summer.
Kirilenko — who had Sloan's permission to tend to personal matters Thursday, though apparently not the blessing of unhappy teammates — made the last two, including one with 16.3 seconds remaining to make it 105-103 Lakers.
Lakers star Kobe Bryant — who scored a game-high 34 points, his fifth 33-plus-point game of the series — answered with two free throws, and a Kyle Korver-fed dunk by Paul Millsap left the Jazz down 107-105 with 13.1 seconds left.
Ex-Jazz guard Derek Fisher of the Lakers made the first but missed the second of two freebies with 12.7 seconds to go, giving the Jazz one last chance to force a potential overtime and perhaps extend the series to a Game 7 on Monday in Los Angeles.
That, though, is when the Jazz's trey-try luck dried up.
Korver, close enough to the long-distance line that his attempt might have been ruled a 2, passed back to Okur, who missed the mark.
Okur's rebound went to Williams, but his deep 3 failed to fall as well. Okur got that board, but by the time he passed back to Korver behind the line time, and a season, had expired.
"We got down so much, but we fought back and got back into the game," Jazz shooting guard Ronnie Brewer said. "We showed a lot of heart from our team. We've just got to find a better way to start the game."
Recent comments
Bye Bye Philly, Lakers r evil,jr, Spazz guy with with the smart wife...
lakerdawgz | May 21, 2008 at 6:34 p.m.
Seems the more you write my stats support your argument the more...
re: stats | May 21, 2008 at 10:55 a.m.
I have never posted any stats, other then 96 FT by Kobe, all the...
Stats | May 21, 2008 at 8:31 a.m.
