To accommodate players, coaches and staffers who want to attend Saturday's funeral for owner Larry Miller, Jerry Sloan will hold a pregame shootaround this morning in advance of the Jazz's game against Sacramento.
Miller's funeral will be held at noon at EnergySolutions Arena, seven hours before the Jazz's game against the Kings. The game is clearly secondary, with Carlos Boozer saying honoring Miller will be "the most important thing that we do" this weekend. "It's been tough to deal with that and hopefully we get some closure this weekend at his funeral," Deron Williams added. "That's going to be a tough game for us, back home on Saturday after the funeral. That's part of life. We've got to try to deal with that and still stay focused on our job."
Miller died last Friday at 64 from diabetes-related complications, with the Jazz players having visited him in the hospital only 3 1-2 weeks earlier after Miller had undergone a double amputation of his lower legs.
"That was a motivation factor for us," Ronnie Brewer said. "I think we're carrying that for the rest of the season. We're playing for him and his courage. We know how passionate he was about the team.
"He told us one thing, to just leave it all on the court, and I think from the top to the bottom that's what everybody's trying to do."
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Familiar face
For the past three summers, the Jazz have been sending players to work out at the Peak Performance Project in Santa Barbara, Calif., with Marcus Elliott, a Harvard Medical School-educated physiologist.
Elliott's face been all over the Internet in recent weeks, with ads promoting his FRS energy drink appearing on ESPN.com and NBA.com. Kyle Korver said he called up Elliott and "gave him a hard time" about the publicity.
"It's a great product, obviously," Korver said. "Anything that he's behind, I would believe in. I'm sure it's going to do really well."
rsiler@sltrib.com
