Jazz can get to .500 by beating L.A.

Just eight days ago, before beating Memphis at home on Dec. 26, the Jazz were five games under .500.

With a win tonight against the Los Angeles Lakers, however, Utah would move into a percentage tie with 14-14 Minnesota atop the NBA's Northwest Division standings.

Go figure.

A victory tonight at the Delta Center would also give the 15-16 Jazz their first five-game victory streak since they won six straight in March of the 2002-03 season.

Hmmm.

Why the big change?

Jazz coach Jerry Sloan may know.

"We have a little bit of stability — more than what we had at the beginning of the year, (when) we didn't know at all who was going to play and where and how much," said Sloan, who has used 13 different opening lineups this season. "I think they have a little bit better idea of how to play with each other — and it's taken us a while to be able to do that."

Injuries to Utah's top thoroughbreds can be pinpointed as a primary cause.

The Jazz have used the same starting lineup for the last three of their current four-game winning streak, but — in large part because of health issues — it's only the third time this season they have gone more than two games without making some sort of change.

Keith McLeod, the Jazz's starter at the point before sustaining a lower-back avulsion fracture that caused him to miss 13 games, perhaps not-so-coincidentally made his first post-injury start at the start of the streak.

He had started seven straight games before going down.

Gordan Giricek, who has missed seven games because of various injuries and illness this season, has started seven of the last eight at shooting guard.

He also made seven consecutive starts at the beginning of the season.

Small forward Andrei Kirilenko, whose 23 points in a 98-94 over the same Lakers on Sunday night at the Staples Center were a game-high, returned to the starting lineup at the start of the current streak after missing three straight games due to back spasms.

He too — sensing a trend here? — started the season's first seven games, before sustaining an ankle sprain that cost him another seven.

Power forward Mehmet Okur, Mr. Dependable when it comes to availability and the Jazz's scoring leader this season, has not missed a start in 2005-06 or a game since joining the Jazz in the summer of 2004.