SALT LAKE CITY — Just before Tuesday’s tipoff, the Milwaukee Bucks announced that they’d play without former Ute standout Andrew Bogut , starter Mike Dunleavy and shooter Beno Udrih.

And the Utah Jazz finished with two key players, Devin Harris (calf) and Josh Howard (quad), in the training room with strained muscles and a roster full of worn-out athletes who’d played six games in eight nights.

Throw in the fact this contest was the tail end of a back-to-back for both teams and, well, even a mother might’ve struggled to appreciate its unique ugliness.

One coach didn’t mind its appearance.

Neither did Tyrone Corbin’s Jazz players, who evened their record at 3-3 with a gritty-and-beauty-challenged 85-73 win over the Bucks at EnergySolutions Arena.

“It wasn’t a pretty game on either end — a lot of turnovers, a lot of missed shots,” Harris said. “It was a kind of grind-out game.”

Utah was as sloppy as you might expect for a team playing its sixth game in eight nights. The Jazz had 24 turnovers, didn’t score more than 23 points in a quarter and allowed 23 offensive rebounds.

Thanks to their gutsy defense, they came out looking like Homecoming Kings compared to the depleted Bucks, who only shot 30.5 percent against a Jazz squad that was last in the NBA in defensive field-goal percentage.

“Defensively, we really stepped up tonight,” Jazz small forward Gordon Hayward said. “And we’re going to have to keep doing that.”

Getting repeat Mark Eatonesque performances would be nice, too.

Twelve of Milwaukee’s 66 misses (29-95 shooting) were sent the other direction by the swat-happy home team.

“Derrick Favors was the one who set the tone,” Jazz center Al Jefferson said.

Favors had a career-high five blocks, all in the first half when Utah held the Bucks to 34 points.

“That’s what I do,” Favors said. “Play defense, block shots, rebound — just bring some energy out, just try to get this win.”

Jefferson and Paul Millsap each blocked a pair of Bucks’ shots. That interior defense sent Milwaukee shooters scurrying outside, where they missed 19 of 21 3-pointers.

“They did a great job of converging on the inside and making them make outside shots,” Corbin said. “That’s the thing we want to continue to build on, make sure we protect the basket and paint.”

Offensively, the Jazz were boosted by Big Al’s season-high 26 points. He also had 10 rebounds.

Millsap added 13 points and 12 boards, Hayward chipped in 12 points and Earl Watson dished out eight assists, filling in nicely for Harris after the starter left in the third quarter. Favors finished with a line of six points, seven rebounds and five blocks.

“Guys fought it out,” Corbin said. “Everybody’s a little beat up, and we used everybody on the roster.”

SALT LAKE CITY — Even as the Jazz pulled their season record to 3-3 with a 12-point win over Milwaukee on Tuesday, there was the nagging possibility that this might be as good as it gets. Home, hearth, family, friends, victory.

It’s a nice deal. Too bad for them it can’t last forever.

There’s always the dreaded road ahead.

Maybe they should start working on a plan for that, too. It will be here, sooner than they want.

You think life is hard at home? Comparatively, it’s a piece of cake — and that’s an intended metaphor. Finding good chocolate cake in a strange town isn’t easy. Neither is winning.

The Jazz played their third home game of the season, holding off the paper-thin Bucks. That makes them perfect at home and perfectly awful on the road. Tuesday was the second of 12 games this month at EnergySolutions Arena.

On the bright side for the Jazz, that means they can unpack — a rarity in professional basketball. The only times they’ll have to get on a plane in January is for quick trips to Golden State and Denver, plus a visit to Dallas. Otherwise, they’re as home-bound as a goldfish.

But then comes February: nine road trips in 15 games, and March with 12 of 19 on the road.

In other words, they’ll want to win almost every game this month, in order to avert disaster later.

“Absolutely, especially if you’re a young ballclub,” said Jazz coach Ty Corbin.

Most disconcerting to the Jazz is the fact they are in fact young, which doesn’t play to their advantage. Logic would dictate the road favors youth. They have fresh legs and strong arms. But almost inevitably the youngest teams have problems when they hit the highway.

“They struggle with it,” Corbin said.

Teams don’t get good until they learn to win on the road. The Jazz didn’t have a winning record on the road until 1994-95, just about they time they got serious about going to the NBA finals. By that time John Stockton and Karl Malone were into their early 30s and had been in the league a decade.

If ever the Jazz were to have a hand-delivered gift, Tuesday would have been it. They were at ESA, where had already established a modest winning pattern. Milwaukee guard Beno Udrih was out with a bad shoulder. Starting guard Mike Dunleavy also sat out with a groin injury. Center Andrew Bogut was absent so he could attend to what his coach called a “personal matter.”

The Jazz’s problems so far this year have ranged from defense to shooting to spacing, and points beyond. Corbin continues to experiment with his young lineup. Never mind a large number of Bucks were on MIA list. The Jazz need wins, anywhere they can pick them up.

SALT LAKE CITY — As bad as they’ve played at times, it might come as a surprise that the Utah Jazz can even their record with a win tonight.

One guy that won’t get in their way: 7-foot Andrew Bogut .

The Milwaukee Bucks center and former University of Utah star is not with the team and won’t play tonight because of personal matters.

Mike Dunleavy (groin pain) and Ben Udrih (left shoulder pain) will also miss the Jazz-Bucks game.

“We have an opportunity to improve our record to 3-3 tonight, but it’s not going to be easy,” Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin said after his team’s morning shootaround. “Milwaukee’s a good ball club. We’re going to have to compete against them as if they’re coming in here to win.”

Both the Jazz (2-3) and Bucks (2-2) are coming off of games Monday night. Milwaukee lost in Denver 91-86, and Utah edged New Orleans 94-90 at EnergySolutions Arena.

That location tidbit makes tonight’s showdown an anomaly. This is the first back-to-back set with two home games for the Jazz since Nov. 2008.

This was Utah fans’ only chance to catch an up-close-and-person glimpse of the former Ute standout, who is averaging 14.3 points and 10.0 rebounds this season.

Earlier today, Corbin credited Bogut for being a solid passer with strong low-post moves.

“He’s a versatile big guy who’s continued to get better and learned this game,” Corbin said.

This game (7 p.m. MT tipoff, ROOT Sports) will conclude a six-games-in-eight-nights beginning of the season for the Jazz. It’s also the second of three home games Utah has this week and one of 12 contests at ESA in January for the young team.

Utah will go with the same starters as Monday: Devin Harris, Raja Bell, Gordon Hayward, Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson.

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SALT LAKE CITY — It was an interesting day for Josh Howard.

First, on Monday afternoon, the Utah Jazz reserve forward got punished to the tune of a $25,000 fine for his flagrant foul in last Saturday’s game against San Antonio.

Then the nine-year NBA veteran went out and punished the New Orleans Hornets a little bit in Utah’s 94-90 victory on Monday night at EnergySolutions Arena.

Howard, who had 18 points and seven rebounds in Utah’s loss to the Spurs, followed that up with a solid 13-point performance against New Orleans as the Jazz improved their early season record to 2-3.

“I’m coming around as far as my legs go,” said Howard, a former All-Star with the Dallas Mavericks who was a free agent before signing with the Jazz on Dec. 15. “Our defense was good in the fourth quarter. Ultimately at the end of the day, you’ve got to have defense to win games. The offense will come eventually, but the main focus right now is defense.

“I don’t know my role right now, you know, I just go out there and play and try to be a veteran leader. That is my role, as far as myself defining it, but for the most part the team is trying to focus on defense, and we played great defensively over the last six minutes, and that was the main thing.”

Howard hit a big jump shot midway through the fourth quarter to tie the score at 80, and his two free throws with 3:48 remaining gave Utah an 85-84 edge and put the Jazz ahead for good.

Then with little more than a minute remaining and the Jazz clinging to a precarious three-point lead at 89-86, Howard came up with a huge offensive rebound that allowed Utah to run more precious time off the clock before Devin Harris hit Paul Millsap flashing down the lane for a slam dunk that made it 91-86 with under a minute to go.

“Oh, yeah, I snuck in there,” Howard said of grabbing a critical carom off the offensive glass. “I had to get my young Wake Forest alum (Al-Farouq Aminu) away from the ball. That was a big possession.”

Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin has certainly noticed Howard’s contributions and says the cagey 31-year-old forward could be in line for additional playing time.

“He’s getting in better shape, man, and he knows how to play,” Corbin said.

“I love his approach to the game and he’s going to continue to get better as he gets in better shape.

“If he continues to work and learn what we want to do and be effective for us, right now he’s a tough matchup for teams. He does a good job of putting pressure on other teams and getting stops. He wants to be in there and he’s doing a lot of extra stuff still to get in the game. There’s a lot of upside to what he’s doing.”

Harris hit 7-of-8 free throws, and his ability to get to the foul line certainly wasn’t lost on Corbin.

San Antonio • The Jazz’s locker-room door opened Saturday night and C.J. Miles sat hunched down in a chair, studying a box score, while Paul Millsap eyed rows of statistics over his teammates’ shoulder.

Utah had fallen 104-89 to the San Antonio Spurs. The Jazz shot just 37.1 percent from the floor, 12.5 percent behind the 3-point line, distributed only 11 assists and scored 21 points or less in the first three quarters.

With 9 minutes, 52 seconds left in the fourth, Utah (1-3) was down by 27 points and the team’s third blowout in four games to start the 2011-12 campaign was already in the books.

But what wasn’t in the box score were words such as effort, energy and communication. They were the same problems that plagued the Jazz during back-to-back road embarrassments to open the season. And they were the exact issues Utah coach Tyrone Corbin hammered home after watching San Antonio (3-1) run the Jazz out of the AT&T Center via a 20-8 second-quarter run that featured 11 consecutive points from Manu Ginobili, who scored a game-high 23 and drilled 5 of 6 3s.

Al Jefferson led Utah with a team-high 21 points and 11 rebounds, while reserve Josh Howard added 18 points and seven boards.

Corbin knows this will be an at times rough, at times joyous season for the Jazz. Utah’s young and rebuilding, but still trying to win games with veterans such as Devin Harris, Millsap and Jefferson. As a result, unpredictability will rein.

But the one thing Corbin’s squad can control is its nightly effort. And after seeing the Jazz lose three games by an average of 19 points – all featuring big-time, game-changing runs by the victors – consistent effort could be the one trait that keeps Utah moving forward even if defeats pile up.

“We need to keep searching for who we are. We just need to make sure we understand that we need to keep working to get better,” said Corbin, who kept the locker room closed longer than normal for the second game in the three contests.

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He added: “We just need to make sure the guys understand that it’s a long season. We need to stay together and work.”

Sticking together was again a familiar postgame refrain. Reserve forward Derrick Favors said it’s the Jazz’s primary problem when on-the-court play falls apart, while veteran backup point guard Earl Watson said Utah’s shown a tendency to cave when it falls behind on the road.

The Jazz have trailed by double-digits in all four games this season, and Utah had to come back from 13 points down Friday to knock off Philadelphia at home.

“We’re a different team on the road. It’s obvious, for whatever reason,” Watson said. “But you can’t sit there and look for the reason why. You have to look for the reason how to win on the road. First, we’ve got to start getting close.”

The Spurs made that goal almost impossible. San Antonio ran a shooting clinic during the first half, burning Utah on rotations that left the Jazz’s perimeter naked and allowed the Spurs to drain 80 percent (8 of 10) of their 3s.

After Utah was lifted by its youth movement Friday, Saturday was a replay of blowouts to the: poor defense, a methodical and lethargic offense, and energy that occasionally spurted but never became in vogue.

Now, the Jazz return to Salt Lake City staring at a cushion of 12 of 15 January games at EnergySolutions Arena. But two months of brutal road travel follows, and Corbin’s more concerned with his team’s progress and evolution than random home wins.

“It’s going to be up and down for a while until we get [settled],” he said. “It’s just not the way that you lose games – it means something the way we play in a losing ballgame. For the most part, the 48-minute effort that we’re looking for, we haven’t gotten in the losses.”

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