This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Jazz had a shot at San Antonio on Monday night at EnergySolutions Arena.
They just couldn't shoot — again.
In Game 4 of its first-round series against the Spurs, ice-cold Utah suffered an 87-81 loss and was swept out of the playoffs.
The Jazz shot 36.4 percent, including 4-for-17 by Paul Millsap, 0-for-8 by Alec Burks and 0-for-7 by Gordon Hayward.
For the series, Utah shot 38.2 percent, including 9-for-45 from the 3-point line. That's 20 percent.
"They are a great team," said San Antonio's Manu Ginobili. "They play hard. But they definitely need the paint, so we tried to put five bodies in there to make things hard."
Actually, the Spurs made things impossible.
Al Jefferson averaged 18.3 points and shot 52.9 percent. But he was pushed to the perimeter by the Spurs' lane-clogging tactics and ended up taking four free throws in 141 minutes.
Meanwhile, Millsap shot 37 percent.
"Their bigs didn't get a lot of things easy," Ginobili said, "and that was a big key for us. They are not the best 3-point-shooting team in the league, so we made that decision to let them shoot a little bit more than usual. But not easy layups in the paint."
Said Millsap: "I don't know how many point-blank layups I missed, which is uncharacteristic for me. But their defense did a great job of somebody always being there — somebody with their hand in my face. It was a tough road for me."
The Jazz failed to score more than 91 points or shoot better than 42.1 percent in any game in the series
It was a far cry from the final five games of the regular season, which Utah won with an average of 109.6 points.
"Just a bad series for us, making shots," Millsap said. "The wrong time for us to miss shots. The week before that, we were making shots. It was just a tough stretch for us."
Said Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin: "We could never get a steady dose of low, low-post feeds. As a result, all our shots were out a little further than we wanted them."
The Jazz's top-five scorers in their playoff series against San Antonio:
Player FGs FG% 3PT 3PT% FTs FT%Points
Al Jefferson 36-68 .529 0-1 .000 1-4 .250 18.3
Devin Harris 19-48 .396 4-15 .267 10-14 .714 13.0
Paul Millsap 20-54 .370 0-3 .000 8-16 .500 12.0
Derrick Favors 15-36 .417 0-0 .000 17-29 .586 11.8
Gordon Hayward 6-33 .182 1-12 .083 16-16 1.000 7.3