Jazz not quite on schedule with substitutions

Nov. 19 -- As Andrei Kirilenko got up from the bench and made his way to the scorer's table with four minutes left in the first quarter of Monday's game, C.J. Miles claimed the thought never crossed his mind that Kirilenko was coming in for him.

Miles had scored 15 of the Jazz's first 19 points or made his first six shots. But Jazz coach Jerry Sloan prefers to make substitutions by schedule and the time had come when Miles typically would be replaced by Kirilenko.

Instead, Miles stayed in for the rest of the first quarter, Kirilenko checked in for Ronnie Brewer and Sloan made the kind of exception that increasingly has become the norm for him, given the Jazz's depth.

"I didn't even see him until the buzzer went off," Miles said of Kirilenko. "I looked over and he pointed at Ronnie and I just kept going.

"It's gotten to the point where lately I haven't thought about it, especially knowing the rotation. ... I just try to play hard in that amount of time and do something on the floor to be productive."

One of Sloan's coaching tenets is that he can get more out of players by sticking to a substitution schedule. If players know approximately when they will be going in and coming out of the game, they will maximize the minutes available to them.

"I'm trying to win. That's the only thing I'm trying to do," Sloan said. "I think it's up to the players to be ready to play. They get paid to be ready and whenever they go in the game, that's part of their job to jump out there and be ready to go.

"I'd like for everything to be kind of consistent, have some continuity with it, but sometimes you can't do it."

Through 11 games this season, Sloan has shown greater flexibility when it comes to playing Brewer in the fourth quarter, as opposed to last season when Brewer was used almost exclusively in the first and third quarters after Kyle Korver's arrival.

Sloan has juggled point guards Ronnie Price and Brevin Knight with Deron Williams out. He started rookie Kosta Koufos in four games with Mehmet Okur away last week, then started veteran Jarron Collins on Monday against Shaquille O'Neal and the Suns.

Paul Millsap has stayed in to finish games in the fourth quarter and seen his minutes increase from 20.8 last season to 26.5 this season. Miles, meanwhile, played the entire first and third quarters Monday and finished with 21 points in 25 minutes.

"It helped my confidence even more," Miles said, "knowing that he saw that I was playing hard and I was able to make some shots and do some things and left me in."

Sloan attributed much of the change to bringing Kirilenko off the bench as a sixth man and the versatility he provides.

Kirilenko can play all five positions but primarily gives Sloan options at either wing spot and power forward.

Collins, meanwhile, said he expected Sloan's substitution pattern to become more concrete once Williams and Okur return. Even with both out Monday, the Jazz had 10 players log at least 12 minutes against Phoenix.

"Coach is trying to win games and he's doing everything he can to win games," Collins said. "If a guy's got it going or if the matchup is such, he's going to play them."

-----

To see more of The Salt Lake Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sltrib.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, The Salt Lake Tribune

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.