From Deseret News archives:
Jazz suffer lost game and lost players in Chicago
Kirilenko and Williams have to come out with ankle injuries
Deron Williams hobbled out as well, his right ankle sprained, too. It fit in a dress shoe, though, and no crutches were required.
And the Jazz?
They left Chicago with a limp and whimper Saturday night, falling — despite Mehmet Okur's 17 rebounds and career-high 33 points — 103-98 to the Bulls to finish a four-games-in-six-nights trip that concluded not a bit too soon.
"The story of the night," said Williams, who might have been the lead if it weren't for the tales of woe, "was that we could never get over the hump."
It wasn't enough that the 4-3 Jazz were closing out an Eastern road swing that started last Monday at Charlotte and ended with a 2-2 split, the other loss coming Wednesday at New Jersey. Or that they're in the midst of playing six-of-seven away from the Delta Center, the lone exception being Monday's coming meeting with the New York Knicks. Or that they've now played the second game in a stretch of four over five nights in four different time zones, including Friday's win at Toronto and next Tuesday's visit to Sacramento.
Instead, at the end of a long and sometimes trying week, the Jazz added injury to the insult of a failed comeback bid against the Bulls.
Kirilenko went down in the second minute of the second quarter, rolling his ankle after tossing up a long rainbow jumper and coming down awkwardly on the foot of Chicago's Othella Harrington.
Utah's starting small forward remained on the floor for several moments and left leaning on the suit-coated shoulders of inactive teammates Matt Harpring and Robert Whaley.
Postgame X-rays were negative. Afterward Jazz trainer Gary Briggs said Kirilenko had sustained "a normal ankle sprain" and called him "doubtful" for games early this week.
"It feels not good," Kirilenko said after a length stay in the training room. "It feels bad."
Williams was feeling better, though only a bit.
He went down in the game's final minute, hopping off with the Jazz down 101-96. Asked later if the ankle was OK, Williams said, "We'll know (today)."
Briggs said Williams' sprain was the sort which he battled throughout his career at the University of Illinois, and that the Jazz won't know until Monday if the rookie point guard can play against the Knicks.
"Deron's is more of a chronic thing," Briggs said, "where we're going to address it with more strapping, more frequent changes of shoes."
