Stockton Delivers the Mail

Don’t stop the presses. Karl Malone and John Stockton lead the Utah Jazz to victory. That’s not news. They’ve been doing that since before Utah was a state. Or at least before it had jazz.

The Jazz scored 99 points Monday night at the Delta Center in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals against the Lakers. Malone and Stockton had 55 of them.

OK, so it’s not every game Stockton scores 22. In fact, it’s hardly any game he scores 22. Maybe that is news. But it is every game he does whatever it takes for the Jazz to win.

In this 99-95 victory, in a game when points didn’t fall like snowflakes in the Wasatch Mountains like they did in Saturday’s Game 1 rout, it just happened to be scoring.

That, of course, is something the Mailman is supposed to deliver every game for the Jazz. He seldom disappoints, finishing third in the league this season with 27 points a game, and making a strong case for himself to repeat as MVP.

When he learned Monday morning that he was the runner-up, he said he was only a little letdown because he figured all along that he had been merely renting the award from Michael Jordan. As Del Harris said before Monday night’s game, speaking on behalf of Shaquille O’Neal and Malone, Jordan figured to win the sympathy vote “because of the feeling it’s his last year.”

Anyway, Malone said he will gladly concede the MVP trophy to Jordan as long as Utah wins the NBA championship, then went out and made sure the Jazz didn’t stumble at this juncture with 33 points--on 12 of 18 shooting--and seven rebounds.

As for the MVP in this game, well, that was Stockton.

After the Lakers proved they weren’t the fakers they appeared to be in their 35-point Game 1 loss, twice extending their lead to nine points in the first quarter, Stockton quickly but surely brought the Jazz back to within one in the final eight minutes of the first half, scoring on six of seven shots for 14 points. Until then, he’d averaged only 11.4 in the playoffs.

The fourth-quarter was more typical Stockton. He took only two shots from the field, scoring on both, but it was the other contributions he made--the passes to Malone and Antoine Carr for open jump shots and the charges he drew, one sending hustling Corie Blount to the bench with six fouls--that made the difference for the Jazz.

When it was over, Stockton didn’t know how many points he had scored. He wasn’t counting.

“We don’t care who is the hero,” he said. “Tonight it was Antoine or Bryon [Russell] and some guys. We just want to win the game. We don’t care who gets credit. We just go out there and play as hard as we can.”

Nobody ever said he was a candidate for “Bartlett’s Book of Quotations,” just the Hall of Fame.

For a more colorful description of Stockton’s role on the Jazz, the assist goes to Malone. Now there’s a switch.

“He gave us a humongous lift,” Malone said. “That’s John. That’s what he does for us. He brings in things you just can’t teach. Down the stretch, he knows what he wants to do and he always tries to do that.

“I’ve never seen him back down. He takes his, but he always bounces back. I think sometimes people take him lightly, but he’s not afraid to stick his nose in.

“It’s kind of amazing because you see a guy like that and some of us big guys look at some of that and do the same. You can’t teach heart. He has it and he always bounces back. Heart is something you can’t teach. Determination is something you can’t teach.”

How long can this go on?

Maybe not forever. Malone is 34 and looks as young as he did five years ago, younger when you see those hair-growing commercials of his. But Stockton is 36, missed the first 18 games of this season while recovering from knee surgery and entered the playoffs with a bad back.

In the first game against the Lakers, Stockton played 22 minutes, the same number as his understudy, Howard Eisley. Eisley outscored him, 14-9, and had the same number of assists, nine.

Jerry Sloan acknowledged after practice Sunday that coaching the Jazz isn’t as easy as it used to be because of the progress Eisley, 25, has made.

“It’s very difficult to take Howard out of games,” Sloan said. “It’s very difficult to let John sit there on the bench.

‘It’s really an unfair thing about coaching. Howard needs to play more. But John wants to be out there every minute.”

No offense to Eisley, but the Lakers would like to see him on the court more often.

Even when Stockton isn’t hurting them with things that show up in the box score, he’s hurting them, literally, with an elbow here, an armlock there, a shoulder block--a veteran’s treasure chest of dirty tricks.

“I respect him,” said Laker guard Derek Fisher, charged with five fouls while matched against him. “But right now, I want to take his head off.”

As if that would stop Stockton. He’d probably just grow another one.