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Friday, May 23, 1997

Rockets say Jazz breaking rules

By CHRIS SHERIDAN / AP Basketball Writer

HOUSTON (AP) - The Utah Jazz are running the pick-and-roll to perfection, unless you ask the Houston Rockets. They feel the Jazz are getting away with illegal moving screens.

"Look at the instructional tape on how to set a proper pick. That ain't the way," Charles Barkley complained. "Guys have been crying about their picks for years, and the refs have been letting them get away with it."

The Rockets are finding a lot to complain about after just two games of the Western Conference finals. Utah leads the best-of-7 series 2-0 going into Game 3 Friday night.

The moving pick complaints came after the Jazz's 104-92 victory Wednesday night. One day earlier, the Houston Chronicle quoted Hakeem Olajuwon complaining at length about Utah's overall style of basketball.

"This team is a bunch of pretenders," Olajuwon said of Utah. "They want to look like good guys all of the time. They want the NBA and the whole world to believe they are good guys, but the truth is that they are bad guys, very bad guys.

"This is a dirty team. They play in a way that is cheap and dirty. They do things that are not within the rules - elbows, picks where they are trying to hurt you, a lot of stuff like that. I cannot respect that style."

Are these hollow allegations of a team on the brink of failure? Or are the Rockets simply adding their voices to a litany of anti-Utah statements over the past several seasons?

Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich sent his team captains to speak to the referees about moving picks prior to Game 2. Seattle coach George Karl had the same complaint in last year's conference finals.

"Look, I'm not going to sit up here and whine about this stuff. It's part of basketball," Tomjanovich said. "It's a factor we addressed in a professional way, but it was like talking to a wall."

According to the rule book, players setting picks are required to stand still. If they don't, an offensive foul is supposed to be called.

But it's one of those NBA rules (see palming, traveling, 3-second violation) that isn't always called, and the Rockets let it frustrate them when their complaints weren't being heeded in Game 2.

Midway through the fourth quarter, Barkley was called for a flagrant foul when he flattened John Stockton beneath the Utah basket.

Asked why he did it, Barkley said matter-of-factly: "Obviously the refs are not going to do their jobs and they're going to let him set moving picks. I was trying to separate his shoulder or break a rib. I was serious."

No NBA team relies as much on the pick-and-roll play as Utah does, and the Jazz run several variations of it.

"Their small guys set picks, and they move on those picks," Tomjanovich said. "Our guys are trying to get around it, and it's very hard to get over a pick when people are moving.

"They (the referees) said they looked at tapes of the other games and didn't see it. I looked at tapes (of Game 1) and saw it. To me it's a simple call, but I guess it doesn't look like that to them."

The Jazz, meanwhile, are watching with a bit of bemusement as the Rockets keep bellyaching.

"We're going to let them do all the talking. We're not going to get caught up in it, and we're going to expect anything when we go down there," Karl Malone said after practice Thursday. "The main thing is to just play, and we'll just go out and try to win the ball game."

Utah has used its depth to its advantage while also exploiting the mismatch between Stockton and rookie Matt Maloney.

Malone scored 22 and 24 points in the first two games, nearly a seven-point dropoff from his average in the first two rounds, but the Jazz won comfortably both times.

Houston has shot only 38 and 36.5 percent from the field, and the Rockets were just 5-for-16 from 3-point range in Game 2 after going 7-for-24 in Game 1.

The most glaring deficiency Wednesday night was rebounding. Utah had a 56-37 edge, and every Jazz starter grabbed more boards than Olajuwon, who had five.

The Rockets know Friday night's game is a must-win, especially since no team in NBA history has ever come back from an 0-3 deficit to win a series.

"In a seven-game series the better team always wins. That's a fact," Barkley said. "I've been up 2-0 many times, then all of a sudden it's 2-2. Unless we lose one of these two (home) games, I'm not going to panic." Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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