The deafening thud heard in the vicinity of South Temple and 300 West on Wednesday night was the beginning of the second half of the Utah Jazz season.
   
A 98-92 spanking at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs had all the eerie trappings of results from the first half.
   
In short: same ol', same ol'.
   
Or, a once-proud franchise settling into the more humble surroundings of average -- just barely.
   
And now the playoffs, usually a dead, immortal cinch for the Jazz -- even as early as the dawning of the season's second half -- seem as far away as the Milky Way.
   
Which begs the question of a 22-20 team staring at back-to-back games against Sacramento, the haughty team with the best record in the NBA: How many of these plodding Jazzmen might not be around come Feb. 21, the day after the league trade deadline?
   
Excepting Karl Malone and John Stockton and maybe, just maybe, rookies Andrei Kirilenko and Jarron Collins and second-year pro DeShawn Stevenson, take your pick.
   
Lest there be some failure to communicate here, be advised that the Jazz were getting a thorough woodshed pummeling -- down 82-66 early in the fourth quarter -- by a San Antonio team supposedly bone-tired on the second night of a back-to-back set, undermanned with three players on injured reserve and losers of four of their last six games.
   
And the Jazz essentially turned tail and looked for the nearest exit, most notably Greg Ostertag, Quincy Lewis and John Starks, who played a grand total of seven minutes among them and had fresh legs for a quick dash to the dressing room.
   
Jazz coach Jerry Sloan had all kinds of adjectives for the woebegone effort Utah exhibited for most of the game. "Disheartening" was at the top of his postgame list.