By CHRISTIAN MARTIN
The Utah Jazz played two of the teams with the worst records in the NBA this weekend and, as expected, came away with a couple victories.
Two game couldn't have been played more differently. Golden State came to town Friday and fell over, while on Saturday the Jazz needed a Hall-of-Fame performance from the Mailman to slip by the Clippers.
Karl Malone has played solid basketball all year in trying to keep the Jazz on a winning track, but Saturday he really out-did his season average of 24.3 points and 10 rebounds. Against a rookie, and a surprisingly competitive Clippers team, Malone scored 42 points and pulled down 18 rebounds to push Utah past L.A. by the narrow score of 94-91.
'The Clippers always seem to give up trouble in L.A. for some reason,' said Jeff Hornacek. 'Their record isn't that great but they always get fired-up to play us.'
Fired-up may be an understatement as the Jazz found themselves trailing most of the game. Malone seemed to take a challenge from Clippers' rookie Maurice Taylor personally and this sparked the Mailman. Malone took over in the final three minutes, scoring 10 points. He hit a jump shot with 23 seconds left to give the Jazz the lead, and then stole the ball from Rodney Rogers with 11 seconds left to seal the victory for Utah.
Saturday's close call didn't resemble anything from Friday's 111-82 blow-out at the Delta Center. Utah led by more than 30 points in the first half and looked sharp building the lead; but the second half was anything but sharp. Many careless plays by the Jazz allowed the Warriors to get within 16 points in the fourth quarter.
'I may be asking too much, but I think we should be able to play 48 minutes,' said Utah coach Jerry Sloan. 'We quit executing and we quit running the floor defensively.'
Greg Foster got the team off and running in the first half with 14 points. He would end the game with a career high 18. Foster has been averaging more than 10 points a game since being inserted into the starting lineup.
'I'm not doing anything differently just because I'm starting,' Foster said. 'I just got lucky tonight. I'm trying to not force anything and shot my open shot. It feels a lot better when it goes in too, that's for sure.'
The Jazz shot 53.1 percent from the field while Golden State shot 33.7 percent. Rebounds favored the Jazz 51 to 38, but despite Utah's impressive performance it wasn't much of a basketball game for the 19,911 fans that showed up in the Delta Center.
The Jazz improve to 9-6 on the season and find themselves on top of the Midwest Division with the San Antonio Spurs. This is something many fans thought wouldn't happen until John Stockton returned to the court. Stockton is still expected to miss three or four more weeks while recovering from knee surgery.
'I still don't think we are at our best yet,' said Howard Eisley. 'We still have a little ways to go to try and work our way through this slump.'
The Jazz will be back in action at the Delta Center Monday night, playing host to former University of Utah star Keith Van Horn and the New Jersey Nets.