Magic number for Jazz

It wasn't long ago that owner Larry H. Miller wasn't even coming to home games, Andrei Kirilenko was uncomfortable with how he was being used in the offense and the well-below-.500 Jazz could not muster more than a couple wins in a row.

My how times have changed.

After Kirilenko posted a rare five-by-five on Tuesday night at the Delta Center and now 16-16 Utah had finished beating the Los Angeles Lakers 90-80 for its fifth consecutive victory, the cheerfully rotund Miller was bouncing around the Jazz locker room with such spring in his step that Kirilenko didn't seem to know whether he should steal him, block him, pass him, score him or simply pull him down off the boards.

"Five-by-five game," Miller said of Kirilenko's 14-point, nine-assist, eight-rebound, seven-block, six-steal performance. "That is cool."

And Utah is hot.

The Jazz are back to .500 for the first time since mid-November. They have won five straight for the first time since March of 2003, when they managed to put together a six-game streak. And they are in a percentage tie with 14-14 Minnesota atop the NBA's Northwest Division, a heart-warming accomplishment for coach Jerry Sloan's club even if reality is that each of the league's five other division leaders are well above .500.

"Six, seven games ago," Kirilenko said, "I don't feel like we're gonna win?"

Now?

"I feel more confident with my role on the team," he said. "I feel like we're gonna win when I'm on the floor."

The Jazz did Tuesday in large part because of the play of Kirilenko, who got the best of 25-point game-high scorer Lamar Odom as Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant served the second of a two-game suspension for clothes-lining Memphis' Mike Miller during a game last week.

His five-by-five is just the sixth in the NBA over the last 12 years — with two of the others being Kirilenko's own, both coming in December of 2003.

Only eight other players in NBA history, in fact, have ever achieved the accomplishment — and only one other, six-timer Hakeem Olajuwon, has more than one.

"Andrei's played awfully well," said Sloan, whose Jazz also beat the Kobe-less Lakers — 15-16, and losers of five straight now — on Sunday night in L.A. "He's been dedicated to doing things, helping and encouraging his teammates.