C.J. Miles sat alone, staring into empty space. Earl Watson was another one-man show, slumped over his locker. And while the Jazz duo soaked in the pain, Al Jefferson quietly confirmed what was clearly obvious: This one seriously hurt.

Jefferson said that Utah's last-second 97-96 defeat to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday was by far the toughest and most frustrating loss the Jazz have endured all season.

Utah has dealt with embarrassing blowouts and energy-less outings. But after the short-handed Jazz (29-21) were on the verge of gutting out one of their most inspired victories of the year, a three-point play by Houston's Kevin Martin with 6.9 seconds to go ended Utah's night.

"A loss is always hard to deal with, but this indeed hurt the most," said Jefferson, who scored a co-team high 20 points and grabbed a co-game high 12 rebounds.

He added: "We lost by one — I missed one free throw. You start thinking about the little mistakes that we made throughout the game that came back to haunt us."

A visibly frustrated Sloan praised his team's effort after the performance but criticized Utah's late-game execution. Sloan said that ball movement often became stagnant on the offensive end, while his team discussed during a late timeout that it could not commit a foul during a last-second shot attempt.

The Jazz did just that.

Martin sank a floating layup off a Shane Battier assist, scoring off a strong curl despite temporarily losing control of the ball. While the razorlike guard's shot was slicing through the net, Jefferson was being called for a personal foul. His face immediately displayed disbelief, but Martin soon dropped in a game-winning free throw.

"It's Super Bowl week, you know," said Martin, who scored a game-high 22 points to lead the Rockets (23-28). "Shane was the quarterback right there and I was the wide receiver, and I was in triple coverage. It was just like the Giants when they beat the Patriots, so we wanted to dedicate that to Super Bowl week. Shane made a great pass and that was the only place he could have put it, and I just threw something up and it went in."

Utah's last-second attempt did not. A 16-foot jump shot by the Jazz's C.J. Miles hit iron with 2.9 left on the clock. Utah grabbed the rebound, but the buzzer quickly blared.

"[The shot] felt good, actually," said Miles, who scored 18 points. "Especially for trying to turn the corner and them switching that way and putting a big on me. I got him to relax with a pump fake; he put his hands down a little bit. I got a look at it and I thought I made it. It rimmed out on me."

Paul Millsap poured in 20 points and 11 rebounds for a Jazz team playing without Deron Williams, Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur.

Reserve point guard Earl Watson filled in for the fourth consecutive game for Williams, and proceeded to pull off his premier performance with the Jazz. Watson recorded 11 points, nine assists and eight rebounds, and clocked a game-high 45:24.

To the 10-year veteran, the numbers were absolutely worthless.

"Right now I don't even care about any individual performance. All I care about is winning and losing," Watson said. "That's the only thing that gets me going in the right direction. So it doesn't matter if I came out and scored 100 points. We lost. It hurts. I hate losing."

Notes

Okur said that he is unsure when he will return to the court. He is dealing with the same back injury that troubled him during January, and acknowledged that he may have pushed himself too hard and come back too soon while recovering from a series of injuries this season. He does not plan to play this time until he is 100 percent. … Kirilenko is day-to-day, and does not know whether he will be able to play Friday at Denver.

bsmith@sltrib.comTwitter: tribjazz

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Storylines

R In short • The Jazz fall to the Houston Rockets 97-96 Wednesday at EnergySolutions Arena.

Key stat • The Rockets connect on 50 percent (11 of 22) of their 3-point attempts.

Key moment • Houston's Kevin Martin converts a game-winning three-point play with 6.9 seconds to go.