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Show 1 V - -Iv V v if-A W-I-' "' "" " ' " '"' " '" ! i n 'Minim In inn 11 il I'll Jazz forward Adrian Dantley hooks in two of his 36 points as three Suns watch their hopes set Sunday. Everyone was wrong about the Utah jazz by Richard Barnum-Reece He says no one wants to talk to him about it now that the Utah Jazz are in the conference con-ference semi-finals. Sam Battistone doesn't mind. "At the first of the year they said we'd finish in last place," he explains, leaning against the bricks just outside out-side the Jazz locker room, watching as his man, Coach Frank Layden, makes the most of the media. "I don't having beaten them in every game save one during the regular season. "I haven't heard anything from the people who booed us when we drafted Thurl Bailey," says Battistone. "I haven't heard a word from the people who told us we had to trade Dantley because a team can't win with an Adrian Dantley." But that's all right. The vMnvi cnooVc frr if coif teresting cultural phenomenon; phenome-non; those people have disappeared dis-appeared and now all the fans, all the dyed-in-the-wool basketball junkies, have become be-come short of memory and long in their adoration of club management and club policy, extending their love of the team as far down the bench as Tom Boswell the former Boston Celtic and convicted purse snatcher who reformed his act and is hear anyone saying anything to me now about what they said at the first of the year at all." None of the basketball gurus, people like ESPN's Dick Vitale, is about to cough up the awful truth: People were wrong about the Utah Jazz before this season started. Dead wrong. For the Jazz, it's been a year of magic. Little did anyone know particularly Woody Paige, the Denver Post sportswriter who insured in-sured a Jazz playoff victory by explaining that the Jazz "ran from a fight" and "have no heart" no, no one knew that the Utah Jazz were this good. Good enough to win the Midwest Division championships; good enough to eke out a win against the enormous offensive machine that is the Denver Nuggets; and good enough to get the home court advantage in a best of seven games series with the Phoenix Suns after What's rewarding is that we've done it; what's great is that someone like Frank Layden, a people person, has been so successful." So the dream continues. In the first game against Phoenix Thurl Bailey, the baritone voice who sang in his church choir, jerked down rebounds as if he were wearing a pogo stick and a meat hook while scoring 26 points and blocking three shots. And Dantley is leading the team in rebounds during the playoffs. ("That's a freak statistic," Dantley says diplomatically, then smiles. And when have you ever seen Adrian Dantley smile?) So now where are all the sports geniuses who knew the Jazz couldn't win with Adrian and Thurl and former for-mer cocaine addict John Drew? They have crawled under the rug and are watching the Jazz take it to Phoenix on now the father image, the occasional enforcer, of the Utah Jazz, , . , , "You get a guy like Thurl Bailey and he just keeps getting get-ting better. Some of it has to do with the fact that he's played in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) where you get involved in a lot of pressure basketball games," says John McLeod, the Suns' coach. "Ricky Green is so explosive and the Jazz are so versatile that it's going to take everything we can put together for us to beat them. "We're gaining in our confidence con-fidence as the playoffs continue," con-tinue," says Layden. "It's the same in golf. When you get your confidence your game improves. "We're a happy team; we're a family. Sure, we have our fights but that's just like any family: People have disagreements. The important thing is we're looking out for each other." |