A 6-0 road trip stands on its own merit.
     
Any team in the NBA would be proud of such an accomplishment.
     
But the Jazz know that the real measure of a team is how it performs against the elite. After all, those are the teams you have to defeat to advance in the postseason.
     
For that reason, Tuesday night's game against the Kings in Sacramento will be another measure of just where the Jazz stand.
     "Obviously, it's a test," said Jazz forward Karl Malone. "We've been playing pretty decent. But these are the kind of guys we may have to play in the playoffs."
     "It's a helluva test," said guard John Stockton. "They're a terrific team. We have to go in believing we can win. We haven't done that against the elite teams yet, and until we do that, we're just a work in progress."
     "They're probably better at almost every position than we are," coach Jerry Sloan said of the Kings, who are 2-0 against Utah this season.
     Malone warned that just because this Jazz team had one of the best road trips in team history, it's not the equal of, say, the two Finals squads.
     "This is not that team," he said. "It's not even the same team it was last year."
     To beat teams like the Kings, Malone said, "We'll have to play almost the perfect game. We don't have any margin of error. What you don't want to do now is get complacent, start acting like you've done something. We need the same kind of attitude we had on the road."
     
While the Jazz were resting up after that long trip, the trade deadline passed, and Malone was a tad surprised that Utah management made no moves. But was he disappointed?