Records pending as Jazz wind down regular season By JOHN ALLEN Chief Statistician for the Utah Jazz With only three home games remaining, it is most crucial to the Jazz playoff positioning that they win all three games. The four games left on the road are against tough teams in our own division. Only Minnesota, a team that has played Utah really well all season, has a losing record. The regular season ends in 1 1 days and the Jazz are not presently playing at a playoff level. The outside shot, ever so important in the playoffs, has diminished as if it was never there. The Jazz still leads the league in field goal percentage at .508. However, that's because of Stockton's pinpoint passing and Malone's accuracy ac-curacy down in the blocks. And as you know, come playoff time, it gets down, dirty and physical in the paint which means the outside shooting becomes even more important. Tomorrow night's big game against the Los Angeles Lakers in the Salt Palace has a 6 p.m. starting time. This is due to national TV coverage by TNT with announcers Skip Carey and Rick Berry. Two other TV crews will also be covering the game, Rod Hundley and Ron Boone for KSTU Channel 13, and the Lakers will have Chick Hem doing their telecast. Karl Malone could become the ninth player in NBA history to average more than 30 points and 10 rebounds per game in a single season. Karl is currently averaging 31.08 points and 11.01 rebounds per game. He would join an elite group of players made up of Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, Bob Pettit, Walt Bellamy, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Abdul-Jabbar, Bob McAdoo and Moses Malone. . What a group to be associated with, especially espe-cially when you consider Chamberlain accomplished ac-complished the feat seven times, Jabbar did it four times, and McAdoo recorded the feat three times. The Jazz received a technical foul a few games ago for "delay of game." What constitutes con-stitutes a delay-of-game call? The call is made by an official, if during the play of the game, any player or team prevents the ball from promptly being put into play. This also includes personnel sitting on the bench. The fust time in the game that each team commits this act, a "delay- of-game" warning is called on the offending team. The rule requires re-quires that the public address announcer in the arena announce the infraction over the PA system. Each successive act constitutes a penalty of a technical foul which is charged to the team, not an individual player. This is not considered an unsportsmanlike act, and therefore carries no fine for the technical. Neither is it considered as one of the two technicals which leads to an automatic ejection of a player from the game. If the same type of delay-of-game act is repeated re-peated intentionally by the same team, the official offi-cial can hold the coach responsible for the infraction, in-fraction, which would then be an unsportsmanlike unsport-smanlike act for which a fine and possible ejection ejec-tion from the game may be imposed. Some of the most common types of delay-of-game calls are: (1) interference with the ball after a score, whether a field goal or free throw, (2) unusual delay coming out of a timeout huddle, hud-dle, (3) failing to immediately pass the ball to the nearest official when a violation is called, (4) slapping or batting the ball from an opponent oppo-nent before the player has the opportunity to in-bounds in-bounds the ball, and (5) crossing the plane of the boundaryline, as a defensive player, prior to the ball being inbounded. Another example, which I've never seen happen in the Palace, would occur after a team scores a field goal and the opponent takes the ball out of bounds and attempts to pass the ball to a teammate who is also out of bounds on the baseline and ready to receive the pass and at this point a defensive player intercepts the pass. This act would cause a delay of game. The first time would be only a warning, but thereafter a technical foul. College and high school rules are a little more relaxed on this (delay of game) call, giving giv-ing the official more power to do "preventive officiating" of helping, talking to, and warning the players as the play progresses. Meanwhile, Stockton could become the first player in NBA history to lead the league in assists and steals in two consecutive seasons. Last year Stockton averaged 13.6 assists and 3.21 steals per game. This year, he is well ahead of his average with 14.5 assists. He is in a real race with Jordan and Pippen of Chicago and Robertson of Milwaukee for the most steals-per-game honors with 2.72 per game. But this lead has been changing each week lately. Only three players have accomplished the feat of having the most assists and steals two consecutive years. They are Don Buse of Indiana, In-diana, Michael Ray Richardson of New York, and Slick Watts of Seattle.