SALT LAKE CITY (Ticker) -- The Utah Jazz seem to be doing just fine without John Stockton and Karl Malone.
Matt Harpring scored 21 points to lead a balanced attack as the surprising Jazz rolled to a 91-80 victory over the Phoenix Suns.
The Jazz (3-1) are off to their best start since the 2000-01 season, when they won their first five games. Utah began 0-2 in each of its last two seasons with Stockton and Malone - the best players in franchise history - in the lineup.
Coach Jerry Sloan's current group of role players, rookies and reclamation projects is 3-0 at home. Utah's only defeat is a 127-102 loss at Dallas.
"It's great to be 3-1," Harpring said. "I don't think anyone expected this, but with that said, we're not making any predictions on how we're going to do this year. We're taking it game by game."
DeShawn Stevenson added 16 points and backcourt mate Carlos Arroyo had 14 for the Jazz, who controlled the backboards with a 48-35 advantage.
Shawn Marion led Phoenix (1-3) with 20 points and nine rebounds. Amare Stoudemire added 18 and nine for the Suns, who have lost both their road games.
"They had more energy than us tonight," Marion said. "We made a couple runs at them but they came out and played hard. We didn't get any stops."
Greg Ostertag's follow shot with 11:13 left gave Utah its biggest lead, 75-56. But Phoenix rallied, closing to 85-77 on two free throws by Joe Johnson with 1:41 to go.
Utah was not unnerved by the Suns' spurt. Arroyo's runner and a jumper by Harpring made it 89-79 with 39 seconds to go.
"In the fourth quarter, we kept on and the crowd helped us in the last five minutes of the game to keep going," Harpring said. "We were getting tired out there so they really helped us."
Utah used a zone defense to clog the lane and force Phoenix to settle for outside shots. Phoenix didn't have much success from the perimeter and shot just 37 percent (30-of-80).
The Jazz had very little trouble scoring inside against the Suns' man-to-man defense and held a 54-32 advantage in points in the paint.
"If you know anything about basketball, you could see that they were clogging the paint up," said Suns guard Stephon Marbury, who made 3-of-13 shots for just nine points. "If they're clogging the paint, you gotta make shots in order for them to open it up."
Phoenix took an 11-10 lead on a Marion's layup with 6:57 left in the first quarter. Harpring's jumper 20 seconds later gave the Jazz a 12-11 lead and they led thereafter.
The game went nearly five minutes without a basket in the second quarter. Harpring's jumper with 6:15 left ended the drought and gave Utah a 39-23 lead.
"We played our game tonight and they never got in what they exactly wanted to get in," Jazz guard Raja Bell said. "We did what we wanted to do, we imposed our will tonight and that was the difference in the game."
The Jazz have won four of the last five meetings with Phoenix.
