THEIR CAPTAIN, All-Star point guard Deron Williams, had left the team earlier in the day for what was described as personal reasons.

In his place was point guard Eric Maynor, the 10th overall pick in this year's draft. It was Maynor's first start, necessitated by the sprained left big toe of backup point guard Ronnie Price.

Maynor's running mate in the backcourt last night was fellow rookie Wesley Matthews, who went undrafted out of Marquette.

The Utah Jazz was hurt, shorthanded and in disarray as it limped into Philadelphia following a blowout loss in Boston on Wednesday night.

And the Jazz knocked the Sixers out of the Wachovia Center with physical authority on both ends of the floor in a 112-90 win.

Maynor played a masterful floor game, collecting 13 points and 11 assists and only two turnovers in 36 minutes, while Matthews posted 16 points, including 3-for-4 from beyond the arc. All numbers were career highs for the rooks. As a team, Utah had 32 assists on 42 baskets, just 12 turnovers and outrebounded the Sixers by 44-33.

Carlos Boozer led a balanced Jazz scoring attack with 24 points, and he also grabbed 12 rebounds. Mehmet Okur and Paul Milsap had 15 each, while Ronnie Brewer scored 14, and Andrei Kirilenko chipped in 13 for the Jazz, which improved to 4-5.

"We have to give a bigger effort out there," said a visibly dejected Elton Brand, who had 11 points for the Sixers. "One through five, they were just pushing and banging and running their sets. From the second quarter on, they bumped our lead and pushed, and we didn't push them back hard enough.

"It's early, so you'd rather lose now than later, but we've got to get it together. We have to find a way to get better. We can't do that, especially at home. Granted, they outplayed us, but they're not that much better than us. Not what the score indicated. Not at all."

They were on this night, particularly in the middle two quarters when the Jazz outscored the Sixers by a 62-37 margin. Just to add more insult to injury, the Sixers scored one point during a 6-minute, 51-second period that overlapped the third and fourth quarter. During that time, the Jazz took its biggest lead of the night at 95-69, and the already-frustrated Sixers faithful, which was tabbed at 10,738, howled its disapproval.

The Jazz offense seemed to flow very smoothly without Williams, who is averaging 20.4 points and 9.9 assists. There were backdoor cuts for layups, wide-open jumpers and perfectly executed pick-and-rolls.

Wasn't that supposed to be a staple of the Sixers' new Princeton offense?

"It was obvious, and has been obvious, that when a team plays very physical against us, we haven't responded," coach Eddie Jordan said. "Whether it was Detroit on the glass, Orlando, Boston and [last night], the team that plays in the physical manner . . .

"This team [Utah] plays physically at the offensive end. The one thing we talked about in pregame and the shoot-around as far as preparation was this team will execute in a physical manner. They will cut and get into your body. They will post up and get into your body. They'll block out and get into your body and get rebounds. That's the strength of their team. They have great interior passing and they catch the ball in the passing. We didn't really respond."

They didn't respond in any phase of the game. There were bad fouls, such as when Lou Williams committed one 24 feet from the basket as the shot clock was hitting zero. There were total mental breakdowns, such as not recovering on defense after blocking a shot, or the time the Jazz took the ball out after a made free throw and got a fastbreak dunk from the 6-11 Okur 5 seconds later.

Incompetence abounded.

"It's tough when you don't defend well," said Andre Iguodala, who had 11 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds. "You're not going to beat anybody. With the offense, guys are trying to catch up with the offensive sets and we're not very good on defense. They just ran their offense and we did not defend it. They pretty much got whatever they wanted, a lot of easy layups. And when you start to get layups, the hole gets a little bit bigger for them. Then they started knocking down outside shots, and that was the game."

Six shots

 

A statement after the game from Deron Williams said he returned to Utah because "one of my daughters underwent a procedure in the hospital to address some health concerns" . . . Thaddeus Young, who missed practice Thursday with a stiff neck, led the team with 17 points on 8-for-10 shooting. *