Man, the first quarter last night was a thing of beauty for the Utah Jazz — and basketball purists. The Jazz sliced and diced the Portland Trail Blazers, spread them out, isolated them and cut them up, laying them bare at both ends of the court in front of about 20,000 people.

Seriously, the new buzz words for the past several seasons in the NBA are cliches by now… all I’ve heard lately from teams is how they need to find players who can “create their own shot.” Yeah, well… I’m old-school. I admit that. But I remember when basketball was a beautiful team game –when it was systems that created shots. And that’s what I saw from the Jazz last night.

Jerry Sloan has never been coach of the year? What a joke. He’s one of the last holdouts who plays the game the right way, who has a system at both ends of the court and sticks to it — and makes sure his players do, too.

Did you see the Jazz just handing the ball to a player last night, asking him to go one-on-one to get a shot? And it’s not as if they couldn’t do that, either. Deron Williams could do it any time. But he works within a proven system that provides great shots for everyone — and Williams has no trouble getting his within that system.

Rick Adelman does this. So do Phil Jackson and Larry Brown. They understand that moving the ball, moving bodies and demanding that players be disciplined within a team framework is critical to winning basketball. For all you young people who think basketball is nothing but isolations and clear outs, who think you win by just handing the ball to your best guy and staying out of his way — well, get your hands on a video of last night’s game.

A lot of fans think that just because John Stockton and Karl Malone were in Utah so long running pick-and-rolls, that what Utah does is pretty predictable. But no way. Even in those days, the Jazz would come at that play in so many different ways, from so many different angles. You’d have to stop all sorts of back cuts, off-the-ball screens and player movement before they got to that play.

And you wonder why Malone and Stockton stuck around for almost two decades, playing in nearly every single game that whole time? Well, they were never asked to carry the same load that a Brandon Roy carries on a nightly basis — the task of taking the ball in the middle of the floor and constantly trying to beat multiple defenders on the way to the basket.

I get so frustrated with people who think that’s how you play winning basketball.

Look, last season the Houston Rockets ate the Blazers alive in the playoffs — and Portland came away saying it needed one more player, in addition to Brandon Roy, who could get his own shot. Meanwhile, the Blazers had been carved up by a team with NO players who could get their own shot but instead played a team game, stayed within a structured group of sets, ran plays, worked to get each other open.

Is nobody paying attention to this? Your system is supposed to get you shots, too — but it doesn’t happen here very much.

And at the other end of the court, well, it’s the same thing. For most of the first half, the Trail Blazers couldn’t get an open look. They had trouble getting to the basket and getting open threes. The Jazz got out to Portland’s guards while still being able to seal off the inside as well as anyone the Blazers have played.

Rudy Fernandez, Andre Miller, Martell Webster and Steve Blake combined to go 8 for 39 from the field. Jerryd Bayless was 5 for 12, but made that many only because he was relentless in his pursuit of cheap buckets late in the game when the issue was decided.

In the second half, things became a little more equal because Carlos Boozer left in the middle of the third quarter with a calf strain, right about the time Williams went to the bench with his fourth foul and Utah was pretty bad at the foul line. Besides, the trailing team, especially at home, always gets that run in the second half.

(By the way, it was a typical LaMarcus Aldridge game — great statistics at the end of the night but if you were watching the game, you wouldn’t like what you saw. For most of the night, Boozer just annihilated him. If he hadn’t gotten hurt, he’d have thrown Aldridge off the Broadway Bridge by the fourth quarter.)

But don’t let that obscure what happened in this game. The Jazz gave the Trail Blazers a very big lesson on how the game is supposed to be played. And it’s real important that everyone understand that.

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Interesting. At the Friday news conference to announce that David Kahn is now running things at Minnesota, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said – in response to a question about whether the job had been offered to anyone else – ”We’ve had nobody turn the job down.”

It has been reported that the Blazers’ Tom Penn turned it down. Don’t ask me, I just pass this stuff along.

Quotes about Kahn distributed by the T-Wolves at a Friday afternoon news conference:

“David helped me as much as anyone that I worked with during my time in Indiana, and his work with Conseco Fieldhouse made it the best building in the league,” Donnie Walsh said. “David has a wealth of experience and will do a great job in Minnesota. He’s very capable of capitalizing on the position the Timberwolves franchise is in and taking that team to the next level.”

“David is a remarkably gifted individual, with a combination of high intelligence, a major-league work ethic, and a great understanding of what makes teams successful,” San Antonio Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich said. “His ability to understand the dynamics of an NBA franchise is a real strength and he’ll be someone the Timberwolves can look to for leadership and sound decision-making.”

“I think the world of David. I’ve known him since we first crossed paths back at UCLA and I have nothing but admiration and respect for all that he’s accomplished throughout his career,” said Charlotte Bobcats Head Coach Larry Brown, who worked with Kahn for two seasons in Indiana. “David will bring a tremendous background to the job, particularly from his time with Donnie at the Pacers. I’ve always had a fondness for the Timberwolves, and with the group of exciting young players they’ve assembled, I think they have a great opportunity in front of them. I’m thrilled that David is getting this chance and I think he’ll do a phenomenal job.”

“I’m very happy for David. He’s a very intelligent guy and knows the ins and outs of this league as well as anyone,” said Indiana Pacers President of Basketball Operations Larry Bird, who coached the Pacers while Kahn was the team’s GM. “He has all the tools to get the job done in Minnesota.”

“An excellent hire. David has great knowledge of both the basketball and business sides of an NBA franchise,” said Dallas Mavericks Head Coach Rick Carlisle, who was Bird’s assistant at Indiana. “David is a highly-motivated person that will bring out the best in the people who work with him.”

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In normal circumstances, you’d be turning cartwheels over the chance to play a team that, on the road, had to play two overtimes last night and lost its best player in the process. That’s what Charlotte did Tuesday night. But the Blazers better be careful tonight in the Rose Garden.

I watched that Bobcat win last night and I have to tell you how impressed I was with it.

Charlotte led virtually the entire regulation and had a nine-point lead midway through the fourth quarter. It was an outstanding performance. The only way the Lakers got the game into overtime was the Bobcats missed five straight foul shots inside the last two minutes. Then, the Lakers got the first six points in the first overtime — a Charlotte fold for sure, right? Nope. The underdogs got the game back under control, Kobe Bryant fouled out — and the Bobcats helped that, going at him frequently when he was in foul trouble — and Charlotte got the game into the second overtime, where it won going away.

This was in spite of the fact that late in regulation, Andrew Bynum nailed Gerald Wallace with an elbow to the ribs that was judged a flagrant foul and sent Wallace in for an overnight stay in a Los Angeles hospital with what was being called a possible broken rib and collapsed lung. UPDATE: Wallace didn’t come to Portland, his lung is “partially” collapsed and he does have a broken rib. Honestly, in watching it live, I didn’t think Bynum’s foul was meant to be dirty. The replay made it look a little worse but I thought the injury was totally accidental.

It was a wonderful game to watch and it reminded me again of what a terrific coach Larry Brown can be. The Bobcats defend with great energy and play so smart on offense, taking only shots they can make and pounding the ball inside whenever they can. They got 54 points in the paint against a team much bigger than they are.

One of the other interesting things was how quickly the late stages of the game were played — because both Phil Jackson and Brown are among the old-school (and Hall of Fame) coaching school that believes well-coached teams don’t call timeouts unnecessarily. I can’t tell you how much more fun these games are without the incessant timeouts so many coaches need to call.

Brown and Jackson will call them late in games for the obvious reasons — to get the ball moved up the floor or (only sometimes) to plot a final shot. But otherwise, it’s the attitude of “we know what we want to do, let the other guy spend the timeout.” I loved it.

Anyway, Brown has the Bobcats playing hard and believing in themselves. They’ll need all of that if Wallace doesn’t play because they just don’t have Portland’s talent. But with Brown on that bench, Charlotte is tipping the ball off just about every game with an edge.

I would expect another solid Bobcat defensive effort and a lot of attempts, with dribble penetrations and postups, to get the ball inside. And that will lead to wide-open Charlotte three-pointers as Portland’s defense attempts to cover the penetration.

The Blazers, by the way, need to avoid thinking past this game. Saturday night’s bout at home with Utah is shaping up to be a monster game. The Jazz are finally showing signs of buckling under the strain of losing Carlos Boozer for an extended time. By Saturday night, that game is going to look like a must win for Utah.

Still, all signs point to the rested Blazers upping their modest win streak tonight. Unless you watched that Laker game last night.

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He’s one of those coaches who, after a couple of seasons, either wears out his welcome by getting on everyone’s nerves — including his own front office — or he gets bored with the job and starts looking elsewhere.

But while he’s interested and while his players are still listening, he can be one heck of a coach. The Bobcats have won more games this season than I thought they’d win and can beat anyone on a given night. Blazer fans hope it’s not this night.

You can learn a lot tonight about Portland’s strengths and weaknesses tonight by the way Charlotte attacks the Trail Blazers. Now whether his players — not extremely talented — can execute it is another matter.

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Television last night offered the opportunity to watch Larry Brown’s latest coaching venture, the Charlotte Bobcats. My goodness — this cannot last, can it? How can a man who has been at this as long as Brown has, put up with this situation? Why in the world did he take that job, anyway?

The Bobcats are as horrible. Terrible. For Brown, this season is going to seem as long as Adam Morrison’s hair. Looking as uncomfortable as he did as a rookie, Morrison is running up and down the floor with his hair in a pony tail that reaches halfway down his back.

And every time they showed the Charlotte bench, poor old Larry was sitting there, just shaking his head. This cannot turn out well, can it?

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