Today’s game

  • Sunday, December 26, 2004 9:00pm
  • Sports

Opponent: Utah Jazz

When: 6 p.m.

Where: Delta Center, Salt Lake City

TV: FSN (cable)

Radio: KJR (950 AM)

Probable starters: For Seattle – forwards Rashard Lewis (6 feet, 10 inches) and Reggie Evans (6-8), center Jerome James (7-1), guards Ray Allen (6-5) and Luke Ridnour (6-2). For Utah – forwards Carlos Boozer (6-9) and Matt Harpring (6-7), center Aleksandar Radojevic (7-3), guards Raja Bell (6-5) and Raul Lopez (6-0).

Next game: Philadelphia at Seattle, 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Scouting report

A year ago, in its first season without longtime stars John Stockton and Karl Malone, Utah finished a surprising 42-40, a feat for which coach Jerry Sloan probably should have been voted NBA Coach of the Year (it went instead to Hubie Brown of Memphis).

This season, the Jazz is again surprising, but for the wrong reason. Expected to be a playoff contender again, Utah has stumbled to an 11-16 record and sits last in the league’s new Northwest Division.

The Jazz trails division leader Seattle by 91/2 games heading into tonight’s 6 p.m. clash at the Delta Center.

One obvious explanation for the team’s slump has been the absence of starting forward Andrei Kirilenko, out since partially tearing a medial collateral knee ligament in a Nov. 27 game against San Antonio. Kirilenko, who is just now getting back to light running and riding a stationary bike, will miss tonight’s game, but will probably be back by late January when Seattle and Utah meet twice in a four-day span.

With Kirilenko to start the season, the Jazz won seven of its first 10 games. But since a Nov. 22 game against New Orleans, Utah has dropped 13 of 17, including four of the past five.

Like Seattle, Utah had a long Christmas respite. After playing in Toronto last Wednesday, the Jazz were given a few days off before returning for a Sunday practice.

“I hope they’re not looking just for a break,” Sloan told the Deseret News newspaper last week. “I hope they’re looking to regroup a little bit and get themselves ready to go again.”

Here’s one stat to watch tonight. Seattle leads the NBA in 3-point percentage (.384, 206-for-536), while Utah is last among 30 teams in defensive 3-point percentage (.383, 162-for-423).

That’s a fact: Since taking over as Seattle’s head coach early in the 2000-01 season, McMillan has gone 0-for-Utah. Yep, he’s 0-8 in Salt Lake City, meaning the Delta Center is one of three arenas where McMillan has never won as a coach (the others are in Boston and New York).

“That’s a tough place to play,” he acknowledged. “(The Jazz) are a different team at home than they are on the road. They play harder at home. They run more and defensively they’re more aggressive than they are on the road.”

That’s another fact: Utah has seven players on its roster who are foreign-born, matching San Antonio for the largest number in the NBA. For the Jazz, the list includes Carlos Arroyo (Puerto Rico), Raja Bell (U.S. Virgin Islands), Gordan Giricek (Croatia), Kirilenko (Russia), Raul Lopez (Spain), Mehmet Okur (Turkey) and Aleksandar Radojevic (Serbia).

That’s one final fact: Sloan has passed former Boston coach Red Auerbach for the most consecutive years coaching one NBA team. Auerbach coached the Celtics for 16 seasons. Sloan is in his 17th season in Utah.

Sloan is also the longest current tenured coach with one team in the North American professional sports of basketball, baseball, football and hockey.

Rich Myhre

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