Grumpy old men
It is something you'll never read about in the papers, nor will you see on SportsCenter. But it was the kind of play that puts the lie to the notion that NBA players don't care about their craft and save themselves for the last two minutes of the last two months of the season. The problem is, it was a display you don't see every night. Or every other night, to be honest.

With 49 seconds left in the first quarter of last week's Wizards-Utah game, the Jazz trailed 27-14. To be kind, Utah is running in sand this season. The chances of the Jazz doing anything special are remote. Utah was in the middle of a long road trip and had shown no signs of life. If ever there was a game to mail in, this was it.

But with those 49 seconds left in the first quarter, Utah got a rebound off a Washington miss. Karl Malone was under the basket, on the baseline. But once his teammate got the board, Malone sprinted -- not jogged, not ran, sprinted -- down the floor. Down past Washington's 20-year-old Kwame Brown, who was running, but not as fast as the 39-year-old Malone. Past all of the Wizards' defenders. And Malone ran down the fast break, getting to the wing in time to take the pass from 38-year-old Mark Jackson for the transition layin and foul.

	Competing at all times is part of Michael Jordan's generation of NBA players.

It was an incredible display of athleticism, intelligence and desire. And before the night was out, the Jazz, down 21 at one point, clawed back into the game, because Malone and the 40-year-old John Stockton were tougher than their Wizards counterparts-most of whom were a decade or more younger. But Utah then lost control when a desperate Doug Collins -- "We were going south, fast," as he put it -- inserted 38-year-old Charles Oakley on the floor to bang with Malone, and to give assistance to 39-year-old Michael Jordan, who was soon all over the floor, talking smack with Malone, who gave it right back.

Here was Oakley, screening off Stockton so he couldn't get to the cup on a drive. There was Malone, muscling his way to the foul line. Here was Jordan, hitting a turnaround. There was Stockton, making the right decision with the ball for the 4,007,853rd time.

A game in November, and the old fogies were deciding it. (Jerry Stackhouse, 28, was the only non-senior citizen of importance in the fourth quarter.) The game ended when Oakley, isolated on the wing against 21-year-old DeShawn Stevenson, stripped the kid as he was elevating for a jumper. Stunned, Stevenson got the ball back, and went up again. Oakley stripped him again. Ballgame.

You know the best part? StocktontoMalone didn't laud the great effort in getting back into the game, or talk about how this was going to help the young guys down the road. They were ticked off afterward that they'd lost.

"It was nice to see guys with a passion for the game," Malone said afterward. "Nowadays, you don't know if guys want to play. There's something wrong with that picture, when you've got older guys that still have a passion after all these years to win or lose. I tell you what you do. Start looking at attendance. People want to see a passion for the game. If I'm gonna pay two or three hundred dollars a night, I sure as hell want to see guys who want to play. Not guys that want to be cool. And that's a problem with guys. And that's sad."

Stockton has never been one to blithely accept reporter hypotheses, and he didn't exactly agree with this one, either. He thinks there are plenty of young guys who care and who want to win. But, "guys who know how to win still stick out, whether they're old or young," he said. "It's not necessarily the guy who scores the most points, or the guy who makes the most big plays. Sometimes it's simply the guy that knew how to screen out, that didn't even get the rebound. Or the guy that plays good, solid defense, and his guy never gets the ball. There's a lot of ways to impact the game without being the marquee guy. It's a learning process in this league, no question."

Oakley was brought to Washington to be Resident Curmudgeon, to slap some sense and toughness into some of the Wizards' kids. But Doug Collins still needs him to play on nights like these, when men decide who wins and who loses.

"It's a generation of players who absolutely loves competition and loves to play, and can't get enough of it," Collins said. "I saw Michael out there, and I saw Stockton and Malone, and it was almost a flashback to when I was broadcasting for NBC."

It did not escape anyone's attention that Jordan's teams usually beat Utah's teams during those days. And had again this time around. StocktontoMalone were the last two guys out of the Jazz locker room. Walking slow, brooding. But knowing there were 48 more minutes to play the following night. And relishing it.

"It's easy to lose," Malone said. "It's easy to have 20 homies and go out and do your thing. But it's hard to go out and play every night. For some people. But for veterans, that's how we've made our living."

David Aldridge, who covers the NBA for ESPN, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.