Karl Malone

No. 1 Utah (62-20) vs. No. 2 Chicago (62-20)Season series: Utah, 2-0 (101-94, at Chicago, Jan. 25; 101-93, at Utah, Feb. 4).Last round: Utah swept the Los Angeles Lakers in four games, winning the Western Conference finals. Chicago needed seven games to defeat the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals.Key players: Utah: Karl Malone (26.9 ppg, 11.0 rpg), John Stockton (11.7 ppg, 7.4 apg), Bryon Russell (11.9 ppg), Jeff Hornacek (10.9 ppg). Chicago: Michael Jordan (31.9 ppg), Scottie Pippen (17.3 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 5.4 apg)

NBA games lost yesterday: 9.Total games missed: 350.Earliest estimated date season can start: Jan. 22.Projected player salary losses (through Jan. 22): $480 million.Negotiations: Nothing scheduled.Today's best canceled game: Utah at Minnesota. A matchup of the veteran Western Conference champions led by Karl Malone and John Stockton against one of the league's up-and-coming teams, stocked with talented young players like Kevin Garnett, Stephon Marbury and Tom Gugliotta.Pub Date: 12/23/98

Total games missed: 322Earliest estimated date season can start: Jan. 22.Projected player salary losses (through Jan. 22): $480 million.Negotiations: Nothing scheduled.Today's best game: "The Game on Showtime," which features 16 current or former All-Stars competing to raise money for charity and boost the players' flagging popularity. Tip-off is at 9 p.m. at the Atlantic City (N.J.) Convention Center. Cable customers who pay the premium for Showtime will see a "Red" team that includes Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone and Reggie Miller face a "White" team with Alonzo Mourning, Chris Webber and Gary Payton.

CHICAGO -- He stepped to the podium clad in a snug T-shirt that accentuated his well-chiseled body. Indeed, to see Utah Jazz forward Karl Malone up close, you're even more impressed by how massive the man is.He was the NBA's Most Valuable Player in 1997 and runner-up this season. During this year's playoffs, he has run over and through the likes of Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, David Robinson and Shaquille O'Neal.So why, two games into the NBA Finals, is the biggest question: "Where in the world is Karl Malone?"

No. 1 Utah Jazz (62-60) vs. No. 3 L.A. Lakers (61-21)Season series: Los Angeles, 3-1 (Los Angeles, 104-87, on Oct. 31; Los Angeles, 97-92, on Nov. 18; Utah, 106-91, on March 28; Los Angeles, 102-98, on April 19.Last appearance in Western Conference finals: In 1991, the Lakers beat Portland, 4-2, then lost to Chicago, 4-1, in the NBA Finals. Last year, Utah beat Houston, 4-2, then lost to Chicago, 4-2, in the NBA Finals.Key players: Utah -- Karl Malone (25.6 ppg, 11.3 rpg in playoffs), John Stockton (11.6 ppg, 7.2 apg)

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Chicago Bulls have no answer for Utah's Karl Malone at full force.No way of stopping him when he plays well.That was true in the first four games of the NBA Finals, when Malone piddled around and stopped himself and the Bulls sprinted to the brink of another title.And it was certainly true in Game 5 on Friday night, when Malone scored 25 points in the second half to carry the Jazz to a victory that kept the series going.If that performance awakened Malone, meaning that we should expect more of the same in Game 6 tonight at the Delta Center, the Bulls are in for a serious fight.

Utah Jazz point guard John Stockton, one of the elder statesmen of the NBA, turned 36 Thursday. In the coming months, Karl Malone (July) and Jeff Hornacek (May) will turn 35.To the younger generation of NBA players, the Jazz trio might be referred to as "old heads." But what Stockton, Malone and Hornacek have done over the second half of the season has turned heads.The Chicago Bulls have the best record in the league, but they are closely followed by a Utah team that has the league's best record since the All-Star break.

No. 1 Utah (62-20) vs.No. 5 San Antonio (56-26)Season series: Jazz won 3-1, its only loss coming on the road without then-injured point guard John Stockton.Last round: Utah defeated No. 8 Houston in five games. San Antonio defeated No. 4 Phoenix in four games.Key players: Utah -- Karl Malone (26.6 ppg, 12.6 rpg), Stockton (12.4 ppg, 8.2 apg), Jeff Hornacek (11.2 ppg, 4.0 apg), Byron Russell (12.6 ppg, 5.4 rpg). San Antonio -- David Robinson (20.3 ppg, 16.0 rpg), Tim Duncan (20.3 ppg, 9.8 rpg)

It would have appeared to be pretty much of a no-brainer for Rony Seikaly. A deal had been made to send him to the Utah Jazz, a team that last year extended the Chicago Bulls to six games in the NBA Finals. Playing alongside Karl Malone and John Stockton, Seikaly -- who was not going to the playoffs with the Orlando Magic -- was as close to a title as he would ever realize.But the deal fell apart Wednesday. The Jazz said that Seikaly and his agent failed to communicate with the team. Seikaly -- perhaps in an attempt at spin control -- said on Friday that Utah was scared off by the deal because of a stress fracture in his foot that could keep him out for four weeks.

It was just over a year ago that the Los Angeles Lakers proved to be a talented -- and clueless -- bunch. They were facing elimination against the Utah Jazz in the 1997 Western Conference semifinals, and the only player seemingly willing to take a big shot was fresh out of high school, Kobe Bryant.Bryant fired up four air balls. Utah won the series in five games, leaving a season-long desire for revenge."I wanted to play Utah because they're the best, the Western Conference champions," Bryant said last week.

The last time I saw Kobe Bryant play in person, he was still in high school. Lower Merion High in the Philadelphia suburbs. And like many fans who watched him back then, I wondered how well he would do against tougher competition when the guy guarding him wasn't some poor glassy-eyed kid being hypnotized by the dribbles and feints and the blur to the basket. And like many fans, I've seen him scores of times on TV, maybe hundreds, since he jumped to the NBA as an 18-year-old. And when he was paired with Shaquille O'Neal on those championship Los Angeles Lakers teams, I wondered how much of Bryant's productivity was because of the star cast assembled around him. And like many fans, after Shaq moved on to the Miami Heat and Bryant managed to be even more prolific offensively, winning back-to-back scoring titles even as his team's fortunes sagged, I wondered how much of that was directed toward self-aggrandizement rather than winning.

A U.S. loss in an international basketball tournament no longer elicits shock. Coach Mike Krzyzewski, Carmelo Anthony and the Americans were to meet Argentina today in the bronze-medal game at the FIBA world championships in Japan. Its gold-medal plans were wrecked in yesterday's 101-95 semifinal loss to Greece. By one measure the first U.S. loss in the tournament is a considerable improvement over two recent flops in international play. Still, it was a huge disappointment. A losing streak to the Argentines traces the Americans' fall from grace in the game that was invented in the U.S. Tomorrow will mark the fourth anniversary of a loss to Argentina at the 2002 world championships in Indianapolis.

LOS ANGELES - There are days when Karl Malone's outlook is dictated by emotion and days when his future is beholden to his health. When those elements conspired recently, Malone took a deep breath and decided his basketball career was over. The magnetic resonance imaging of his right knee seemed to tell him as much, and when Malone considered the chaos engulfing the Los Angeles Lakers, he figured it was time to retire. So he told friends exactly that while attending a memorial for Bobbye Sloan - the wife of Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan - last week in McLeansboro, Ill. But Malone's outlook changed a few days later when doctors, performing an arthroscopic procedure, discovered the knee was in better shape than believed and could be 100 percent again.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - It began with the Pistons' stunning road victory in Game 1, got better with Kobe Bryant's dramatic three-pointer that sent Game 2 to overtime, and grew more compelling with Detroit's 20-point romp in Game 3. The Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers arrive at a crossroads tonight, when the greatest mystery of these NBA Finals will be laid bare. In position to take a 3-1 lead at the Palace in Game 4, the Pistons are determined to prove that their smothering defense is doing to the Lakers what it has done all season.

Most NBA players consider a stay on the injured list a part of the price of doing business at the highest level. With all the running, jumping and exertion the long season requires, time in the whirlpool is to be expected, and only the masochistic or the self-delusional would figure not to have some down time. And then there's Karl Malone, 40, the rugged Los Angeles Lakers power forward who apparently believed he could go his entire career without going on the injured list, then went into denial when he did, missing 39 games because of a knee injury.

WHO'S UP WHO'S DOWN UP: Sam Cassell The Minnesota point guard and former Dunbar star has been fabulous in December, winning Western Conference Player of the Week honors Monday, and becoming a solid second option to Kevin Garnett. DOWN: Tracy McGrady Not very captain-like behavior from the Orlando forward to leave the TD Waterhouse Centre after straining his hip early in a loss to the New York Knicks. UP: Chris Webber The Sacramento power forward is doing light workouts for the first time since his June knee surgery.

WASHINGTON - It's not often that a guy who plays only seven minutes and scores only two points draws the lion's share of attention after a game, but then, Charles Oakley isn't just any basketball player. Last night, Oakley's experience and knowledge were just what the Washington Wizards needed to pull out an emotional, 105-102 win over the Utah Jazz at MCI Center. Oakley, 38, in his 17th NBA season, had been largely an afterthought for the Wizards (5-4) this year, playing just nine minutes in Washington's season opener in Toronto on Oct. 30. But in a game in which experience was sprinkled heavily on the court, Oakley was the ace in the hole, entering in the last seven minutes, with the Wizards trailing by seven.

ATLANTA - It was a light moment at the Final Four. A half-hour after Maryland held off Kansas on Saturday night, coach Gary Williams was asked about the manner in which Chris Wilcox shut down Jayhawks All-American Drew Gooden. "Well." Williams said, "Chris is going to be a great junior next year for us." Then the veteran coach burst into laughter. Juan Dixon keeps bolstering the argument that he's the best player in Maryland history and Lonny Baxter is a two-time regional MVP, but Terps fans better enjoy Wilcox while they can, too, because his professional prospects soared in the past three months.

OK, so it's hard to think of a $15 million-a-year player as a victim, but there's a pretty good chance that Juwan Howard was robbed of a spot in next week's All-Star Game in his own building. Howard, the 6-foot-9 forward of the Washington Wizards, won't show up on anyone's list of elite players, nor should he. But he has had a steady if not spectacular first half of the season that probably should have been rewarded with an All-Star berth next Sunday. It has become fashionable to bash Howard, in the midst of a long-term, big-bucks contract, for not playing up to what he's paid.

Phoenix Suns vs. San Antonio Spurs Records: Suns, 53-29; Spurs, 53-29. Outlook: The Spurs' fortunes have ebbed and flowed all season. G Avery Johnson hasn't played up to his capabilities, F Tim Duncan has a suspect knee and the difficulty of defending an NBA crown has been quite obvious. The Spurs' struggles allowed Utah to capture the Midwest Division title, so they are seeded only fourth in the West. Still, they will have home-court advantage in this series. The Suns are not a threat because they are not healthy.