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Frank Hughes
Monday, April 24
For the Jazz, Pacers, it's the end of the world



"It's the end of the world as we know it...."
-- R.E.M.

SALT LAKE CITY -- This is it. What do we have, two more months, max? And then, the NBA as we have known it for the past decade is kaput, finished, au revoir, sayonara.

Yeah, yeah, the new breed is coming in, Vince and Tracy and Tim and Kobe and even this little-known dude out in the Pacific Northwest named Rashard.

Jeff Hornacek
Without Jeff Hornacek raining threes from the sky, is this it for the Jazz?

But the old guard, well, they will be in nursing homes soon.

They've never won a championship between them, and some would describe them as boring and steadfast, but it will be something of a sad passing when this NBA postseason is over and the Utah Jazz and the Indiana Pacers no longer will exist, at least no longer will they exist as we have come to know and love/hate them.

With Jeff Hornacek retiring in the Mormon capital, and with Rik Smits retiring on creaky feet and Reggie Miller headed who knows where for God knows what reason and Mark Jackson likely taking his lead-weighted feet someplace else, two of the most reliable basketball teams of the '90s no longer will be.

Yes, Stockton and Malone still will be around. And they are the essence of the Utah Jazz. But guess what? They didn't do a whole lot until Hornacek, whom I like to call The Accountant, got there and started busting threes from the outside with regularity in the middle of the 1994 season. When it was the pick-and-roll, it was fine. When it was the pick-and-roll-and-kick-and-pow is when it took the Jazz to the next level.

Who's going to do that for Utah now? Quincy Lewis? Nyet. Howard Eisley? Nada. Jacque Vaughn? Please.

Let's face it, the Jazz should receive mounds of credit for even winning the Midwest Division this season, and doing it at a time when many people already had them written off, and doing it at a time when Hornacek's knee is about as strong as a house of cards.

But their moment is over. MJ stole that moment with the glorious shot over Bryon Russell, as MJ has done to so many other teams.

Utah's window was open, and they nearly slipped in and got their title. But that window is closed. It was changed into plexiglass. It had bars thrown around it. And it has security sensors on it.

The decline of the Utah Jazz that everybody spoke of this season? We were a year early. It's going to happen next season, when Horny is at his kids' school, tutoring second graders on the lost art of free throw shooting.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the Jazz will not win their fair share of games. As long as Malone is around, they will do that. They won't have a problem pounding on the Clippers and Grizzlies of the world.

But Hornacek gives them a dimension that makes them dangerous enough to be a serious playoff threat. Without him, they go from the pick-and-roll to the pick-and-roll-and-kick-and-clang.

Indiana never made it quite as far as the Jazz, but almost.

Their trips to the Eastern Conference Finals and never getting farther are legendary stories of frustration. Perhaps the only organization able to one-up the Pacers is the Buffalo Bills.

They got there last season, and got jobbed on Larry Johnson's mystery four-point play. They got there the year before that, and lost to Chicago in seven. In '94-95 they got there, and were ousted by an Orlando team that went on to get swept in The Finals. And the year before that they lost to New York.

Four trips to the Eastern Conference Finals in six years, and never once taking the next step. There hasn't been this little consummation since before Viagra was invented.

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That's not to say they have not been entertaining. Those memories of Reggie in the Garden, barking at Spike Lee, hitting, what, like 13 treys in about seven seconds.

Earlier this season, I recalled that one of the best games I ever had seen was that Pacers conference finals game with Orlando, where Brian Shaw, Reggie and Penny Hardaway all hit successive 3-pointers to change the lead back and forth, and the game was culminated by Smits draining a 16-footer at the buzzer to give Indiana the win.

And this is not to say that the Pacers cannot make it to the Finals this season. They certainly have a better chance than the Jazz, although their chance of winning a title is about as good as Houston's.

But the essence of sport is change. In real life, you can have the same company rule the marketplace for decades, probably even centuries, if you look at something like Ford.

But in athletic competition, part of the excitement is that no player, and therefore no team, can last forever. Turnover is inevitable. Evolution is natural.

It doesn't make it less sad, but it makes it bearable, understandable, and it leaves room for hope that two more stalwart teams like those disappearing after this season will come along in the future to replace them.

"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."

Frank Hughes covers the NBA for the Tacoma (Wash.) News-Tribune. He is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.

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