This series hasn't exactly been competitive for Jazz

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Nov 21, 2008 by Tim Buckley Deseret News

SAN ANTONIO -- It's a meeting of epic proportion that could go either way, another installment in a series with a history of amazing happenstances -- but perhaps never any more at stake than now.

Oh, sorry.

Wrong rivalry.

The Jazz and San Antonio Spurs have been something of a lopsided matchup in recent years, especially with Utah having lost 17 in a row during the regular season here -- including a 0-10 record at AT&T Center, where tonight the two face off for the first time this season.

And make that 20 straight losses here when including the playoffs, 0-13 overall at AT&T.

San Antonio, in fact, has held Utah to fewer than 100 points in 37 consecutive regular-season games -- a span dating to 1999.

So just what it is that has allowed the Spurs, who've taken 10 straight season series from the Jazz, to be so dominant over coach Jerry Sloan's club?

"I don't know. I wish I did," said point guard Deron Williams, who'll be a game-time decision tonight because of the sprained left ankle that's caused him to miss all but two of the 8-4 Jazz's games this season.

"It's just somewhere we struggle," Williams added. "A lot of teams have those places where they struggle. Maybe not so much as us at San Antonio, but it's just a place we haven't been able to win."

Backup small forward Paul Millsap offered a somewhat more specific assessment.

"You know, that's a tough environment -- and they also have a good team," he said. "When we get down there we just freeze up. I don't know what it is.

"I guess it's the crowd getting into our heads or whatever," Millsap added. "But we're looking to turn that around."

Helping the cause in that regard has to be the fact San Antonio is expected to be without both starting point guard Tony Parker, who's been sidelined by a sprained left ankle, and sixth man Manu Ginobili, who's yet to play this season because of ankle surgery.

Yet that's mitigated because the Jazz have been enduring a rash of injuries, including not only Williams' sprain, but now also a quadriceps strain that has fellow 2008 Olympian and two-time All- Star power forward Carlos Boozer listed as doubtful for tonight.

Sloan -- whose Jazz don't have a victory in this city since Feb. 28, 1999, when they won 101-87 -- can only hope his team does what Millsap says it's seeking.

Moreover, though, he simply wants to reverse the Jazz's woes anywhere and everywhere on the road -- where they're 2-4 this season, as opposed to 6-0 at EnergySolutions Arena, and where they were just 17-24 last season.

"When we're here," small forward C.J. Miles said after beating Milwaukee in Utah on Wednesday night, "we know the crowd's behind us, we're in our home. There's a comfort level when everybody's excited, everybody's pumped up. We've got to get the same way on the road. I mean, it's the same game -- just different arena."

Or, as Sloan put it after the Jazz beat the Bucks, "Are we going to be energized (in San Antonio), or are we going to wait till we get back home to be energized?"

Even with Parker and Ginobili out, it seems they'll have to be here if they hope to snap the streak.

"They're good," Sloan said of the Spurs over the years. "They're better than we are, to make a long story short. They've got a great player in (Tim) Duncan. We've never had an answer for him since he's been in the league. Parker, he's been as good as anybody that we've played against at that position. And of course then (Ginobili).

"They've got a lot of guys around those guys (who) know they've got to win. ... And they know they're going to win," Sloan added. "They step out there on the floor, they go out to do one thing -- and that's to win. And that's why they defend. They defend you, and they execute their stuff. They don't just defend once in a while; they defend you every time you come down the floor."

There really is, then, something about these Spurs.

And Sloan sure does like it, especially when his own club refuses, or is unable, to counter with the same.

"I think we go down there and probably don't execute," he said. "I don't think we're intimidated; I think we just don't execute as well.

"You can call it whatever you want, but you've got to go down there -- or wherever you play -- (and) you've got to put a big effort into it, and then you've got to believe you can win. If you go down there and have any doubts, you're not going to have a chance."

E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com