Malone Making It Rough on Clippers

Utah forward Karl Malone warned that the rest of the five-game series with the Clippers could be as nasty as the opener, won by the Jazz, 106-86.

Malone said he just can’t help himself.

“It was physical [Thursday] and [tonight] it will be even more so,” he said after Friday’s short practice. “I don’t have any hard feelings toward anybody. When I’m out there I want to play within the rules.

“But in the playoffs, who knows what the rules are?”

Apparently, Malone thinks those rules involve a variety of late elbows and body slams.

At least, when he’s matched against smaller guys like Bo Outlaw.

There is a feeling that if Utah plays the Lakers in the second round, Malone won’t try anything like that against Shaquille O’Neal.

“In the playoffs, it’s just you and your teammates against everybody else; that’s how you have to look at it,” he said.

Loy Vaught, the Clipper forward who was outscored, 27-20, by Malone while outrebounding Malone, 11-10, noted that Malone may be excused of bad manners more often than others.

“You feel like he gets away with a lot because he is one of the strongest in the league and is protected more than other players,” Vaught said. “I will not say he is a dirty player but . . .”

Vaught shrugged. “But [the Jazz does] whatever it takes to win, even if that means pushing the envelope. They initiate a lot of stuff, then the guy who retaliates is the one who is called for the foul.”

*

Malone acknowledged he is thinking about taking the most-valuable-player trophy from Michael Jordan.

Seemingly everyone else in Salt Lake City is thinking about it too, judging from signs at the Delta Center to the lettering on fast-food marquees.

“I’m not going to lie, the award would be nice,” Malone said. “I must admit, I’m playing for Karl now, a lot more than I used to.”

Another motivating factor, he said, involved the usual preseason buzz that he was finished.

“One writer wrote that I had one foot in my grave and the other on a banana peel,” said Malone, 33. “They have been writing death certificates for [John] Stockton and me for six years now. . . . People just don’t see how hard I work.”

Neither, apparently, do most of his teammates. Malone said only two younger players on the team have picked up on his routine of weight training and conditioning.

“If I was a young guy, I would be following the older guys every day, see what they do,” he said. “Only a couple of our guys do that. The rest, they just go their own way.”