Jazz goes from bleak to bleaker

What comes after bleak?

Impossible?

Where’s Tim Donaghy when we need him?

Vacation?

If desperation leaves the best wake-up calls, the Utah Jazz had the added advantage of a noon tipoff, which is the crack of dawn in the NBA, and was still 22 points down by halftime Sunday.

At that point, they were a perfect 10 on the Jerry Sloan Bleak-O-Meter, before cutting the lead to single figures in the second half of Sunday’s opener of their first-round series against the Lakers, and losing only 113-100.

Having termed its prospects in this series “pretty bleak” and found them to be bleaker still, Sloan congratulated his team on its effort.

“I was proud of our team to fight back in the second half,” Sloan said. “We could have folded our tent, but I was proud of the fact that we did play hard, tried to get back in the ballgame.”

Next, actually getting into a ballgame?

Sunday seemed like a likely day for the Lakers to ease into action, since the action was starting so early, with a subdued Phil Jackson doing his media session at 10:45 a.m.

“You know, it’s early,” Jackson said. “Here we are, preparing for an NBA game at 10:30 in the morning. I’m usually very chipper at this time.”

For his part, Sloan, who’s incredulous at most of the questions he gets, with reason, thought the notion that an early start would help anyone was a riot.

“I wish we’d start at 8 a.m.,” said Sloan, laughing. “I think we could beat them, right off the bat.”

Actually, Sloan’s preference would be midnight in a dark alley, or it would have been with his vintage teams.

This Jazz team looks amazingly like those John Stockton-Karl Malone teams, with another all-world tandem, Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, and plenty of guys, such as Paul Millsap and Matt Harpring, who’ll belt people.

In a key difference, the Stockton-Malone teams defended, tenaciously as well as physically.

This Jazz team has more firepower, more athleticism, less menace and wins by outscoring people.

It worked for two seasons, in which they made the 2007 Western Conference finals and lost to the Lakers in a 2008 Western Conference semifinal, but not as well this season, amid questions about Boozer’s upcoming free agency.

Knowing it had to play a great game, the Jazz jumped out to a 6-2 lead, then was outscored 60-34 the rest of the half, looking, Sloan said, “like deer in the headlights. . . . “

The Jazz shot poorly (35%), turned the ball over seven times and couldn’t contain the Lakers stars (Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol combined for 22 points, shooting nine for 11). Trevor Ariza and Shannon Brown, the role players they challenged to beat them from the outside, made four of five three-pointers.

“We’re not a nasty team,” Sloan said. “Most of the teams we’ve had here were pretty nasty, in that they’d get after you from daylight to dark. We’re just learning to get after it a little bit more with younger guys.

“That’s my fault. I take complete responsibility for that, because I haven’t probably been nasty enough with them.”

Bryant, asked if the Jazz lacked nastiness, laughed.

“Well, you know, I’m a game connoisseur, so I know how nasty Sloan was when he was playing,” said Bryant, laughing. “ . . . [You] would be kicked out of the league if you played like that nowadays.”

If things weren’t bad enough, the Jazz still doesn’t have 6-11 Mehmet Okur, who’s no Mark Eaton or even a Greg Ostertag, as far as clogging the middle, but is some kind of shooter.

“We’re short out there,” Sloan said, “and we get shorter when we have to substitute. And they’re a big, long team, anyway, and we can’t seem to make our guys any taller.”

Not that Sloan, who doesn’t talk about people who don’t play, wanted to hear any questions about when Okur will be back.

“Just when he’s ready to go,” Sloan said. “Hopefully, he’s healthy when we put him out here.”

This didn’t quite match Sloan’s classic answer when once asked which finger Stockton had hurt:

“The one on his hand.”

So, you’ll just have to wait until Tuesday’s Game 2 to see whether Okur is there, or the Jazz, for that matter.

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mark.heisler@latimes.com