It isn't easy playing backup to a legend.
     Sometimes, it can make you look pretty bad even when you're doing your job.
     Such is the case with Rusty LaRue, the latest in a long line of unsung players to toil as John Stockton's understudy.
     If you looked at the play-by-play of Tuesday night's 94-87 Jazz loss to the Detroit Pistons at the Delta Center, you might think LaRue was the prime culprit.
     After all, in both of LaRue's stretches on the court, the Jazz were outscored. LaRue entered the game in the first quarter with Utah up 18-12, and when Stockton returned early in the second quarter, the Jazz lead was down to one.
     In the third quarter the Jazz led by nine when Stockton sat down, and when he came back seven minutes later, the score was tied.
     But coach Jerry Sloan says you can't blame those disparities on LaRue. A bigger problem was players who refused to hustle in stretches, especially those stretches when LaRue was trying to run the offense.
     "We had a chance to put them away . . . and never could get on the same page as far as what we were trying to do offensively," Sloan said.
     Sloan said there's an obvious difference in the way Jazz players react to LaRue and Stockton. But, he emphasized, there were also instances where they didn't make Stockton look very good.
     "John had a couple times where he pushed the ball up the floor and didn't get anything, either," Sloan said.