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Show I he Jazz are playing sweet music in Utah -vK.H' Of V ;;$ , V i c 5 J- - - S . .', ' ' :' ' o by David Hampshire They are teams which represent the ultimate in basketball. The Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers are neck and neck in the Easter Conference. The Milwaukee Bucks are leading the Central Division. The Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trailblazers are slugging it out in the Pacific Division. And the Utah Jazz have a three-and-a-half game lead in the Midwest Mid-west Division. That's right, the Utah Jazz. That's J-A-Z-Z. At this writing they are 19-10 overall, with a 4-3 record against the teams just mentioned. men-tioned. For those of you who don't follow basketball, we'll put that in context. In their nine previous years in the league, the Jazz have never had a winning season. During their first five seasons, when they languished in New Orleans, their main claim to fame was showboat "Pistol Pete" Maravich. New Orleans and Maravich are ancient history now, but the Salt Lake City version of the Jazz has continued the losing tradition. In their first four full seasons since the move to Utah, the Jazz won 107 games and lost 221. Expect more of the same in '83-'84, said the experts. The first month of the season made those experts look good. After the Thanksgiving weekend the Jazz's record stood at 7-9. But the second month of the season has been a different dif-ferent story. Following a one-point one-point loss to Kansas City on Nov. 26, the Jazz (at this writing) have won 12 out of 13 games, and are now feeling the euphoria of holding first place. Many of the team's finer moments have been witnessed witness-ed by the hometown fans as the Jazz have won their last 11 games in the Salt Palace. One of them was the 118-116 squeaker over Denver Friday ..night. .., ; . . . yd Playing a role-in the re- surgence of the Jazz is first-round first-round draft pick Thurl Bailey. To date Bailey is averaging nine points and six rebounds a game. Against Denver he made a spectacular spec-tacular defensive play, single-handedly stopping a two-on-one break when the score was tied at CI. Nuggets' center Dan Issel exposes his missing front teeth as he drives to the basket through Jazz forwards Rich Kelley (left) and Jeff Wilkins. The Jazz wound up on top 118-116 Friday night. But aside from Bailey, the team has much the same personnel as a year ago, when it stumbled to a 30-52 record. Salt Lake sports-writers, sports-writers, in trying to ex plain the improvement, have grasped at intangibles like "teamwork," "chemistry," and "maturity." When you look at the Jazz roster you don't find any Larry Birds or Ralph Sampsons. Samp-sons. In fact the Jazz seem to shy away from those with superstar potential and salaries to match. A year ago they drafted Dominique Wilkins, then promptly 22 points a game coming off the bench. The closest thing the Jazz have to a bonafide superstar is Adrian Dantley, who came to Utah in 1979 from the T.akprs in a trade for Soen- iraaea mm to tne Atlanta Hawks for John Drew and Freeman Williams. Instead, the Jazz have filled their roster with castoffs, free agents and refugees from the minor leagues. Take Rickey Green, for example. A six-foot point guard, Green made a splash at the University of Michigan leading the Wolverines to second place in the NCAA tournament in 1977. He was picked in the first round of that year's draft by the Golden State Warriors, but was traded to Detroit the following year. He was waived by the Pistons in December of 1978. No other NBA team picked him up. When the Jazz found him, he was playing for the Billings Vocanoes in the Continental Basketball League. That was three years ago. Last year, Green was second in the NBA in steals per game, third in assists per game. Three weeks ago he was named NBA player of the week. Then there's seven-foot four-inch Mark Eaton, who was drafted in the fourth round last year after sitting on the bench at UCLA for two seasons. Eaton's other claim to fame was as the world's tallest auto mechanic. Eaton rode the Jazz bench much of the early part of last season, but broke into the starting lineup early in February. On Feb. 18 he set a Jazz record by blocking 13 shots against Portland. This season Eaton stands second in the league in blocked shots per game, and second on the Jazz in rebounds per game. Then there's John Drew, who came to the Jazz last season in the Dominique Wilkins trade and promptly entered a rehabilitation program for cocaine dependency. depen-dency. However, by the end of the season he was starting to live up to his promise, and this season he is averaging cer Haywood. Dantley won the league scoring title in 1980-81 and is leading again this year with an average of 31 points per game. By the time this is printed, Dantley should have passed Maravich as the all-time leading scorer for the Jazz. Frank Layden, now in his fifth year as the club's general manager, took on the added responsibility of coaching the team after Tom Nissalke was fired in December, 1981. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Layden was the coach at Niagara University when Calvin Murphy was rewriting the scoring records. re-cords. Although the Jazz ranked no worse than 15th among 23 NBA clubs in home attendance atten-dance last season with almost 8,700 fans per game, owners Sam Battistone and Dr. Gerald Bagley have cooked up a novel scheme to pump more money into the franchise this season. They moved 11 home games to the 18,000-seat Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. While the maneuver may help the Jazz financially, it may take away the home-court home-court advantage that the Jazz would have enjoyed in Salt Lake City. When the Jazz played the Chicago Bulls in Las Vegas in November, the crowd saved its biggest cheers for Chicago's Sidney Green and Reggie Theus who played their college ball at UNLV. The Jazz lost that game. In fact, they've lost two out of the three games played so far in Las Vegas. If you're interested in catch ing the Jazz in action, you can watch them on the tube Friday night against Denver. Den-ver. They're scheduled to play four home games in Salt Lake City during January: against Kansas City Jan. 6, against Phoenix Jan. 10, against Washington Jan. 14 and against New Jersey Jan. 26. |