PORTLAND ? As Karl Malone and John Stockton sat down to dinner a few nights back in Seattle, the conversation rolled around to Stockton's sliced finger and the Jazz point guard's availability for weekend road games against the Seattle SuperSonics and the Los Angeles Lakers, not to mention this evening's road trip-ending visit to Portland.

John Stockton played on and played well last weekend despite a finger cut.

Scott G. Winterton, Deseret News
     Stockton, recalling that in 1997-98 Malone went the entire season bothered by a dislocated fingertip, said something like this:
     "You played, didn't you? You played a whole year like that."
     Malone probably responded in the affirmative, and Stockton kept on talking.