SAN ANTONIO — What do the Jazz need to do in order to win, then? Keep Al Jefferson out of the game?

Following a three-point win over Philadelphia Friday night, Utah reverted back to the same poor play it had in its first two games of the year with the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver, and shot below 40 percent for the second time in four contests (including 2-of-16 from the 3-point line) in getting hammered, 104-89, by the San Antonio Spurs Saturday night in Texas.

Jefferson returned to the lineup after sitting out against the Sixers at EnergySolutions Arena.

GUARDS: Devin Harris continues to turn in sub-par performances. He scored eight points on just 2-of-8 shooting, while dishing out just three assists. Curiously, he shared time with Earl Watson, who was equally bad in going just 2-of-9 from the floor with no assists.

Raja Bell has yet to play great in any game, going scoreless in three attempts in 17 minutes Saturday, while C.J. Miles returned to inconsistency by scoring seven points on just 2-of-7 shooting. Meanwhile, San Antonio shooting guard Manu Ginobili was nearly flawless in scoring nearly as many points (23) as he logged minutes (24), while going 9-of-10 from the field. He simply ran around, shot over and backcut the listless Jazz guards whenever he actually was in the game. Really, no Jazz guard hardly played well at all. GRADE: D-

FORWARDS: Paul Millsap scored eight points on 4-of-7 shooting with seven rebounds, but he really needs more shot attempts. Derrick Favors gave a mediocre performance in 23 minutes in his first effort off the bench this season, while Gordon Hayward probably gave his worst performance of the young season, going just 1-of-9 for four points. He tallied four assists and three rebounds. Former all-star Josh Howard scored 18 points, but it came on 6-of-16 shooting. Future Spurs hall-of-famer Tim Duncan was limited to a 4-of-13 effort. GRADE: C-

CENTERS: Jefferson did return with a decent offensive game in scoring 21 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. He and rookie Enes Kanter allowed DeJuan Blair to score 17 points on just eight field goal attempts. Kanter’s two rebounds mark the lowest rebounding game of his four-game NBA career. It remains to be seen if the Jazz will miss Mehmet Okur. GRADE: B-

BENCH: You know when you’re in trouble when Howard’s 6-of-16 effort leads the bench attack. Overall, the reserves shot just 16-of-43 from the field in going just 1-of-8 from the 3-point line. The saving grace? The Jazz bench outscored the San Antonio reserves 48-30. GRADE: C

SALT LAKE CITY — Paul Millsap is getting his wish. He’s an NBA starter once again.

Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin changed his starting rotation for tonight’s home-opening game against the Philadelphia 76ers, inserting last year’s starting power forward back into the first five while putting Derrick Favors in a reserve role.

Favors has gotten off to a rough start this season after getting into early foul trouble in both blowout losses to the Los Angeles Lakers and the Denver Nuggets. He’s averaging 5.0 ppg and 8.0 rpg.

Millsap, meanwhile, has been the Jazz’s most consistent player. The sixth-year player is leading the team with 15.5 points per game and has averaged eight rebounds.

“(Favors) gets a chance to watch a little bit coming off the bench and relax a little bit, I hope, and be ready to come in the game,” Corbin said. “Paul is used to starting so he’ll know how to handle the anxiety and just go out and play and play aggressively, and not worry about not fouling.”

The other four starters will remain the same, with Devin Harris (point guard), Raja Bell (shooting guard), Gordon Hayward (small forward) and Al Jefferson (center).

The Jazz spent Thursday watching film and dissecting what went wrong (and right) on both offense and defense in the two losses in which they lost by an average of 21 points.

One thing, in particular, stood out about the Jazz’s performances.

“I don’t think we came out with the kind of effort we had in training camp,” Corbin said. “I don’t know if (it was due to) fatigue and anxiety from starting up or just the whole short training camp and the first couple of games.”

Corbin is hopeful Thursday’s viewing and discussion will pay off as the Jazz try to get their first win of 2011-12 tonight against a 1-1 Sixers squad.

“I thought it was a good exercise. It was a good film session,” Corbin said. “It was a good meeting we had. We’re looking forward to a big effort tonight.”

Tipoff is at 7 p.m. MT. The game will be televised live on ROOT Sports.

Email: jody@desnews.com Twitter: DJJazzJody

For the Utah Jazz, the past two nights have been uglier than Chris Kaman.

Not long after they got pounded by the Los Angeles Lakers in their season opener, Coach Corbin and Co. become the victim of another blow out, this time to the Denver Nuggets.

Here’s why they’re off-key:

1. The Jazz are inexperienced

Eight of the Jazz’s 13 players are under the age of 26, and three of them (Enes Kanter, Derrick Favors, and Alec Burks) are barely old enough to serve Mormon missions.

What’s more, those who do have some NBA games under their belt are pulling a “Bueller.” Al Jefferson, for instance, is scoring a modest 11.5 points per game on 33 percent shooting. Likewise, veteran guard Earl Watson is producing just as many turnovers as assists.

2. Corbin is using a 13-man rotation

The Jazz are deep, but that’s no excuse to play all 13 players. If the entire roster is seeing 10 minutes of PT, how will anyone get into a groove? When will specific rotations get comfortable with each other? How will anyone learn their role?

This isn’t Jr. Jazz. Not everyone should be playing equal amounts of time.

3. There needs to be change at the guard position

After years of watching John Stockton and Deron Williams, it must’ve been quite difficult for Jazz fans to observe Utah’s point guards during the past couple of evenings.

While playing against the Lakers and Nuggets, London-lover Devin Harris, and his trusted sidekick Watson, failed significantly to control the tempo of the contests. Harris collected a meager 15 points and eight assists, while Watson—in 37 minutes of action—went 0-4 with zero points.

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DENVER — The Pepsi Center hoops appeared to be bigger than the ones at Staples Center.

Unfortunately for the Utah Jazz, that went both ways.

A night after their offense was nowhere to be found in a lopsided loss against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Jazz hit some shots and scored just fine.

But their defense disappeared.

Rotations, team help, effort and any chance at winning all evaporated in the thin Mile High air on Wednesday night, too.

The result was another embarrassing 117-100 blowout — this one by the Denver Nuggets.

“We have to get better. … We’ve had two tough losses,” said Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin, whose team lost by an average 21 points in back-to-back nights. “We’ve got to get back together and continue to work and fight. We’ve got to learn to trust each other on the defensive end of the floor and get it figured out.”

Utah did hit 48 percent of its field goals in Denver’s building after missing a whopping 61 shots while shooting 32 percent against the Lakers in an awful offensive showing, so there’s that.

But Denver had its way with Utah’s restructured defense, which resembled a church-ball team.

The Jazz gave up 68 points in the paint, allowed Nene to score 25 points, watched Andre Miller dish out 12 assists and Al Harrington drop in 18 points off the bench, cranked their necks as speedy Ty Lawson burst to the hoop time after time, helplessly permitted the Nuggets to shoot a sizzling 53.5 percent, and let the home track team run and jump all over, around and above them.

That was one long paragraph — and an even longer night — for a deficient defense.

Giving up lobs, drives, backdoor cuts and transition baskets disgusted Corbin.

“That’s unacceptable,” he said. “That’s just effort. That’s disappointing.”

The second-year coach had a longer-than-usual postgame chat with his team, taking an extra 10 minutes or so to try to impress on them the need to play harder and together.

Sure, they’re a work in progress. They’ve got an odd mix of inexperienced talent and capable veterans. But they lack an identity and consistency, with the offense and defense trading turns at stinking it up.

“We’ve got to get things figured out quickly,” Corbin said. “The effort we got for the most part today wasn’t satisfactory, so we wanted to have a discussion about it.”

Things started somewhat promising for Utah, which is in the midst of a rough six-games-in-eight-nights stretch.

Center Al Jefferson scored 10 of his team-best 19 points in the first quarter after missing 14 of 16 shots against the Lakers. But Utah’s starting five of Devin Harris, Raja Bell, Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors and Big Al still didn’t completely click, falling behind 28-23 after the first 12 minutes.

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Jazz fans hoping to get their first taste of NBA action since last April will have to wait longer than originally scheduled.

The NBA announced this morning that it has canceled the first week of preseason games and “indefinitely” postponed training camps for the 2011-12 season because owners and players have not come to an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement.

The Jazz were supposed to open fall camp on Oct. 3, and their first preseason game was scheduled for Oct. 9 at Portland.

Utah also had home games planned against Oklahoma City (Oct. 12) and the Los Angeles Clippers (Oct. 14), which have been called off. In all, the NBA canceled 43 games between Oct. 9-15.

“We have regretfully reached the point on the calendar where we are not able to open training camps on time and need to cancel the first week of preseason games,” NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said. “We will make further decisions as warranted.” The NBA will decide by Oct. 1 what to do with the final two weeks of the preseason, according to Yahoo! Sports.=

Jazz preseason games that haven’t been canceled yet include a three-game trip in Los Angeles against the Lakers and Clippers from Oct. 16-19, a home game vs. Portland on Oct. 21 and the franchise’s first trip to North Dakota (against Golden State) on Oct. 25.

The regular season is scheduled to start at EnergySolutions Arena on Nov. 1 against Houston.

Kobe has offers to play basketball in Italy

LOS ANGELES — The lucrative offers, most of them real, keep rolling in for Kobe Bryant.

He got a contract offer this week from an Italian pro team, though it was far from certain Bryant would play there, according to a person familiar with Bryant’s thought process.

Bryant will indeed be in Italy next week, but the trip is for scheduled promotional appearances for Nike in Rome and Milan.

The new offer is for a reported $6.7 million from Italian team Virtus Bologna, which begins its season Oct. 9 and would have to come up with a huge insurance policy to land Bryant, not to mention the actual cash to get the 13-time all-star to play on the perennially underachieving team.

Bryant, 33, is under contract with the Lakers for three more years and $83.5 million. He has several contract options from the Italian team, according to its general manager, including a shorter per-game deal that would work out to about $740,000 a game. All options are non-binding, allowing Bryant to return to the Los Angeles Lakers if the NBA lockout ends.

— By Mike Bresnahan, Los Angeles Times

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