Not on the Jazz's watch

SAN ANTONIO — He should get it tonight, at home against Houston.
But the Jazz said they weren’t trying to deny Tim Duncan his milestone.
Really, they weren’t.
Pinkie-swear.
“We weren’t into that,” Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said.
“I didn’t know,” Jazz forward Carlos Boozer added with reference to Duncan’s quest to reach the 20,000-point plateau when Utah beat San Antonio on Wednesday night. “I never heard of it.”
By game’s end, though, he had.
Duncan scored just 14 points Wednesday, leaving him with 19,999 in his career — and one shy of becoming just the 35th player in NBA history to have scored 20,000 regular-season points or more.
He’ll have to wait, then, until tonight to join Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Robert Parish and longtime teammate David Robinson as one of only seven players who have scored 20,000 or more, pulled down more than 10,000 rebounds and blocked more than 2,000 shots.
Duncan also will soon become the 11th player to score all of their 20,000-plus points with the same team, joining Robinson, John Havlicek, Reggie Miller, Jerry West, Kobe Bryant, Elgin Baylor, Larry Bird, Hal Greer, Bob Pettit and Dirk Nowitzki.
(Karl Malone, by the way, had 36,374 points before leaving the Jazz for the Los Angeles Lakers, and John Stockton finished his Jazz career with 19,711 points).
It’s a milestone mark Duncan no doubt will reach.
Just not on the Jazz’s watch, even if they didn’t mean for it to be that way.
“Timmy’s a great player,” Boozer said, “and you know, he’s gonna have more great games than not.
“I know he’s gonna have a lot more 20,000 when he’s done,” the Jazz forward added. “Obviously as a fan of his I hope he gets it. But I’m glad he didn’t get it against us.”

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Also, for whatever it’s worth now …
Something that wacked out of Thursday’s newspaper game story:
San Antonio was called for just three fouls in the first half — tying the Jazz franchise record for fewest fouls by an opponent in a half (last time, Los Angeles Lakers in 1991) and tying for fewest in a half by one team in the NBA this season.

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