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 Opposites attack Kings enter playoffs with bang, Jazz with whimper
Posted: Thursday May 06, 1999 08:16 PM
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- In the regular season's final two weeks, the Utah Jazz looked exhausted, while the Sacramento Kings looked like they were just getting started. The two teams will meet in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs starting Saturday at the Delta Center. Though the Jazz are among the favorites to contend for the first NBA title in the post-Jordan era, the upstart Kings are among the NBA's hottest teams. "They've been playing really well in the last couple of weeks, and we haven't," John Stockton said. "They've been a tough matchup for us this year. We'll have to improve our play if we don't want to get embarrassed." With one of the league's most exciting young lineups and 10 wins in their last 11 games, the Kings roared into the playoffs with a 99-95 win over Vancouver Wednesday night. Sacramento clinched the sixth seed in the West with the win. "I told the team at halftime they deserved to be the sixth seed, and they had to go out and get it done," said first-year Kings coach Rick Adelman. Meanwhile, the Jazz stumbled to the finish, blowing homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs by going 5-5 in their final 10 games of the year. Fatigue was undoubtedly a factor: Utah closed the season with 22 games in 36 days, and April was the busiest month in team history. "The way we're playing, anybody we got matched up with would have been difficult for us," Utah coach Jerry Sloan said. "They're a lot better team than they were even last year, and they could have beaten us three times this season. They have to feel pretty good about their chances against us." The two teams met three times during the regular season, and all three games went to overtime. The Jazz won two of the games, though they needed five free throws from Karl Malone and a missed wide-open layup by Lawrence Funderburke in the final minute of regulation to steal a 120-112 overtime victory on Feb. 15. Sloan, who has lamented the abbreviated season's lack of practice time, ran his team through a difficult workout on Thursday morning and planned to do the same Friday. "I told them to tape up real good," Sloan said. "We've needed a couple hard practices for quite a while now." Though Utah still finished with the league's best record at 37-13, the San Antonio Spurs matched that mark and won the No. 1 seed in the West by beating Utah 2-1 in the season series. Utah slipped to third, but would have homecourt advantage in a series against any team except San Antonio. Sacramento, which led the league in scoring this season, held off Phoenix and Minnesota for the sixth seed and just its second playoff appearance in the last 13 seasons. In Chris Webber and Jason Williams, the Kings have a power forward-point guard combo that reminds many of a more familiar duo in Salt Lake City. "We've got a lot of respect for that team and what they're doing out there," Sloan said. "They're trying to build a winner, and that's something we can understand in our organization." Nine of Utah's players have two trips to the NBA Finals on their resumes, and Todd Fuller is the only Jazz player with no playoff experience. The Kings have just five players -- Jon Barry, Vlade Divac, Vernon Maxwell, Scot Pollard and Webber -- who have ever been in a playoff game.
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