Crying, whining, complaining, looking for sympathy — that stuff is as much a part of Utah games as the vaunted pick-and-roll. During the game, it's Karl Malone, John Stockton and the rest of them trying to work the referees for extra calls, borderline fouls and other alleged preferential treatment.

Afterward, though, it's always the opponents, most often vanquished, who do the griping. Funny how that works.

Over the past few weeks, Western Conference opponents again have been accusing the Jazz of being crybabies, refs' pets and, worst of all, dirty rotten scoundrels. They are the hard ticks of the NBA, able to get under people's skin and infest them with their own brand of Wasatch Mountain spotted fever.

After a recent game against Golden State, several Warriors bemoaned their lack of respect from officials. Forward Jason Caffey blamed Malone's untouchability for Caffey's 13-minute, foul-plagued performance. "How do you defend him?" Caffey said. "You don't, that's how. You end up on the bench."

Phoenix's Luc Longley accused Malone last week of intentionally kicking him in the knee, buckling it backward. What really burned the Suns center, when he viewed the play on videotape, was a smile he discerned on Malone's face as the Jazz forward ran down court. "It looked pretty bloody flagrant to me," Longley said. (Witnesses, including Phoenix coach Danny Ainge, doubted Malone's intent.)

Then there was the Clippers' Maurice Taylor, who traded shoves and elbows with Malone. Malone got tossed from what eventually was a big Clippers victory, and Taylor said: "That was a punk move." (Malone's response? He wondered snidely how little Darrick Martin was able to hold back the much-bigger Taylor, when Taylor supposedly wanted to fight.)

Finally, with the Houston Rockets grumbling twice in 10 days about Jazz tactics, Malone asked rhetorically: "Why is it when we lose, we say we lost, go home and get ready for the next game? When teams lose to us, they've always got something to say. I'm tired of hearing it."

So am I. The Jazz might, in fact, be the current Bad Boys of the NBA. Center Greg Ostertag, no doubt preferring the wrath of foes such as Vlade Divac and Antoine Carr over the ire of Malone and coach Jerry Sloan, has been playing a little too frothily lately. Goon maneuvers have no place in the game.

But hard play does. I have seen the reactions when Stockton gets his elbows, knees and 175 pounds uncomfortably into his man when setting screens. I once saw Malone jam his forearm into Terry Porter's windpipe as he came across the lane, and watched Porter deliver a punch to the Mailman's, er, mailbox the next time he tried it. That's how it should work — deal with it on the court.

The fact is, opponents who gripe dislike the Jazz for reasons way beyond their rapport with refs or their sneaky tricks. They don't like losing, almost all the time, to a team led by a 37-year-old point guard and a soon-to-be 36-year-old MVP candidate. They don't like Utah constantly raising the bar for its own franchise's success and, in the West, blocking a path to the Finals.

They might feel insecure over the Utah players' sense of team vs. individual, their rare money squabbles, their work ethic or their willingness to spend entire careers in a city that most athletes consider boring. They might not like it that the Jazz don't buddy up to rivals in the NBA's great millionaire's club.