The Jazz did more than knock off the world champs to get a monkey off their back Wednesday night, they watched their kids grow up.

The basketball universe seems to revolve these days around Los Angeles Lakers stars Shaquille O"Neal and Kobe Bryant, but in the biggest victory of the season for the Jazz, a couple of their rookies made a huge difference.

The Lakers" stars got their points - O"Neal scored 28 and Bryant added 26 - but Jarron Collins and Andrei Kirilenko helped the Jazz get the hard-fought victory, winning 92-84 at the Delta Center.

""We had a lot of people play hard," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said.

Particularly his rookies.

Collins gamely battled O"Neal, the Lakers behemoth, for 25 minutes, digging in on defense trying to hold his ground.

It was a losing proposition, but Collins never flinched, making sure O"Neal had to work for everything - even his defense.

""I just went out there and worked hard," Collins said. ""If he is going to sag off (on defense) I have to knock down that shot."

And that"s what Collins did, helping neutralize O"Neal"s impact somewhat by scoring 10 points of his own. But that was only half the battle.