As Wallace headed up the floor, referee Steve Javie blew his whistle from across the court. Technical foul, for the league's most frequent offender. The whistle incensed coach Flip Saunders, who jumped up and was handed a technical foul of his own.

After the Jazz's victory, Wallace was still fuming, particularly since Utah was handed three technical-foul points and won by two points.

"I knew it was going to come down to exactly what it came down to," Wallace said. "Going down to the fourth, I knew we were going to get [dumped] on. They talk all that [garbage] about making the game better. This is making the game worse. It's retarded. They ain't gonna change it, so they're like, shut up and deal with it."

With the NBA cracking down on on-court complaining, Wallace has been ejected once in Detroit's four games this season, and now has four technical fouls. Once you accumulate 15, the league begins issuing suspensions.

Boozer earns weekly award

Carlos Boozer is the NBA's Western Conference Player of the Week, and it has meaning to him. "It's awesome. It's a big honor to me, Boozer said. "It means a lot to me because there are so many good players having good weeks for good teams." Boozer had a double-double in all three games, each of them a Utah victory, and averaged 20.7 points and 15.0 rebounds. That last stat makes him the NBA's leader.

Mr. Defense

Dee Brown's thundering rejection of a Monta Ellis shot on Saturday briefly made the 6-foot guard the Jazz's second-leading shot-blocker. OK, he sort of knocked the ball away as Ellis went up for a layup. "I deflected the ball. If it counts as a block, I'll take it," he laughed. Kirilenko was more excited than his teammate. Told that Brown's 1.0-per-game average made him the only Jazz player other Kirilenko to average one or more per game, the Russian got a huge grin on his face. "Dee! He's great. He's Mr. Defense!" Kirilenko joked.