It’s Anything But the Same Old Jazz for Antsy Malone

SALT LAKE CITY — Now for the night they’ve been waiting for all season ...

Oops!

Wow, that was almost some emotional return for Karl Malone, who returned to the city where he played 18 seasons Monday night ... in civilian clothes.

Of course, this is just how things are going for the Lakers lately. This was The Homecoming That Wasn’t, followed by The Game That Wasn’t, an 88-83 loss to the Utah Jazz, and to date, it’s still The Season That Isn’t.

Malone actually wanted to play, but the Lakers talked him out of it. By the end of the night, they were not only without Malone but Kobe Bryant (hurt), Slava Medvedenko (sick) and Shaquille O’Neal (ejected), and Coach Phil Jackson, going down the stretch with three guards, Luke Walton and Brian Cook, could have used the extra body.

How badly did Malone want to play?

At Monday’s shoot-around, he said there’d never been a regular-season game he wanted so badly to be in.

“No, there’s not,” Malone said. “This one here, put this one right here up with playing in the Finals. Without a doubt.”

By the evening, Malone was acknowledging he wouldn’t be playing but doing it with a heavy heart.

“My competitive instinct wanted to play in this game and that was probably the wrong reason,” he said. “Because no matter what, you still feel like you want to prove something but I don’t have anything to prove to anybody. After I came to grips with that ... “

Malone, of course, is known for playing but if he needed any more motivation, the emotional Jazz owner, Larry Miller, opened up on him over the weekend.

With his voice breaking, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, Miller announced, “I don’t need Karl Malone in my life,” as if he were a jilted lover, adding Malone had “no foundation to which he attaches himself [so] he knows who he really is.”

By now, the locals didn’t know what to think, with Malone, who missed 10 games in 18 seasons, missing both of the Lakers’ games here and Miller complaining, among other things, about Malone’s failure to come back to get measured for the statue of him and John Stockton they’re putting up. The Tribune’s Kurt Kragthorpe wondered if Miller might now put up a statue of Stockton passing to Scott Padgett.

For his part, Malone had already decided to make an overture toward Miller, whom he has feuded with before, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t upset.

“I only know this right here,” Malone said, “I had 18 years in a place, great fans and great people in the organization, including Larry and Gail [Miller’s wife.] I’m not going to let anything bother me on that, ‘cause my attitude’s different ...

“I decided to do what I wanted to do [sign with the Lakers] and that’s what I did, so they can say anything they want to say, because I’m my own man, I make my own decisions.

“I do have a foundation. Probably a better one than a lot of people have.”

The Lakers are the ones who have been missing their foundation recently, or significant pieces of it. Thus you can imagine Jackson’s delight when O’Neal finished off his big dunk with a manly flourish that knocked Andrei Kirilenko out of the way, and got his second technical foul.

O’Neal, of course, gets frustrated more than he used to in the days when he was more explosive and scored easily, which is why he needs big flourishes on dunks.

Nevertheless, you can see Jackson’s point. As frail as Kirilenko looks, there are little old grandmothers out there who could knock him down.

Jackson said he hadn’t seen the replay and withheld judgment on the call but said Bob Delaney, the referee who made it, is “prejudiced” against O’Neal, repeating it several times for emphasis. You could see the NBA cash register ringing him up as he talked, Ka-ching: $10,000! ... $20,000! ... $30,000!

O’Neal left like a slow-moving missile, snarling at a writer who made a tentative move to step in front of him to “get out of my ... face.”

Malone walked past all the TV camera crews, down to the Jazz dressing room, where he shook hands all around and encountered Miller. They talked and walked out together again. Miller said things were “better.”

So, it turned out OK for someone. Miller’s team got the win, he got his friend back and was spared the sight of Malone in a Laker uniform.

We’re not sure Larry’s quite ready for that one yet.