The Jazz merely took care of business instead, blowing out the New Orleans Hornets 116-90 in a KJZZ-televised game at sold-out EnergySolutions Arena.

Utah saved the nail-biting stuff for must-see games everyone can watch on FSN, a consolation prize of sorts for those caught in the middle of the KJZZ-DirecTV squabble -- the team-affiliated station wants money from the satellite subscriber for its programming, and is denying DirecTV retransmission rights until it pays up.

Which is not to suggest those watching on Dish, Comcast, in person and with tin foil on the antenna were treated to anything less than an all-out effort from several with the Jazz, most notably power forward Paul Millsap and point guard Deron Williams.

Millsap merely scored a game-high 27 points and pulled down a game-high 14 rebounds, extending his NBA-high active streak of double-doubles to 19.

"He's just a monster down there," teammate Kyle Korver said Millsap, who played 38 minutes while All-Star power forward Carlos Boozer awaits Friday's arthroscopic knee surgery.

"He's really improved," Korver added. "He's scoring. I think the question marks about him in the past were 'Can he put up points?' It's obvious he can."

It's apparent, too, that if Millsap is a truck bed, Williams is the one behind the wheel.

The USA Basketball Olympic Team point guard scored only eight points, but he dished eight assists while seeing to it that 21-15 Utah beat New Orleans for a fifth straight time at home.

And he did so despite being so sick Jazz coach Jerry Sloan wasn't certain if he'd even be available.

"He was under the weather all day," Korver said, "and you could tell."

"I didn't know if he was gonna play for sure," Sloan added.

But oh, is he ever glad he did.

"Most of the time, what he does -- it makes us go," Sloan said. "There's no question about that."

Williams, truth be told, never had any doubts himself about playing.

He admitted to being much less than 100 percent ever since rising from a Tuesday nap with a cold and feeling not quite right.

"My throat's been hurting the last couple days. ... I wasn't feeling so good," he said. "I woke up and, headache. My throat was killing me. I just couldn't breathe. Just congested."

It didn't get any better Wednesday night, especially as counterpart Chris Paul -- Williams' teammate on gold medal-winning Team USA -- helped New Orleans jump to a 33-29 first-quarter lead.

Paul finished with a team-high 26 points, hitting 10-of-18 from the field while also dishing seven assists.

"I had no energy," said Williams, now 9-2 all-time in head-to-head matchups with Paul. "I was dizzy, trying to chase the blur around."

But the Jazz ultimately were the ones who had the 21-11 Hornets seeing double, as they took the second quarter 29-13 for a 12-point halftime lead, thanks to an 11-2 run in the final three minutes of the half.

Utah used an 11-2 run in the final three minutes of the half to take that double-digit advantage into the break, with Korver laying in a Millsap pass, Millsap hitting a 15-footer, 20-point scorer Mehmet Okur making two free throws, Korver nailing a 3-pointer and Andrei Kirlenko adding two more freebies.

The Jazz quickly pushed that lead to 20 early in the third quarter, and they led by 18 or more throughout the fourth. And when Millsap scored with a Kirilenko feed with just under four minutes to go, Utah had its biggest lead of the game at 33, 109-76.

"I'm so proud of how we played today," Williams said. "We knew they were going to be tired from (beat the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night), and we took advantage of that."

"They had a tough game (Tuesday), and they probably weren't quite as lively as we'll see them the next time we play them," added Sloan, whose club continues a four-game homestand Saturday night vs. Detroit. "But that's part of this business. I can't do anything about that."

He can't, though perhaps it wouldn't hurt if he called DirecTV himself to help that other little business matter. E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com