Jazz won't play what-if game

LOS ANGELES — In the wide, wide world of what-ifs, the Jazz have a doozy.

What if their current starting lineup — rookie point guard Deron Williams and forwards Andrei Kirilenko, Matt Harpring, Mehmet Okur and Carlos Boozer — had been opening together all season long, rather than just the past eight games?

It's a game so tantalizing to play some with the Jazz just as soon not.

"It's one of those things you can think about — but it doesn't do you any good to think about," co-captain Harpring said. "We're fighting for the playoffs right now, and every game counts so much. There's no looking back. We've got to look forward, and that's it."

Harpring is right about the postseason fight.

With just 11 regular-season games to go, including tonight's visit with the Los Angeles Clippers in the middle outing of a three-game trip, 34-37 Utah remains ninth in the NBA's Western Conference and just 1 1/2 games behind Sacramento for the West's eighth and final playoff position.

The seventh-place Los Angeles Lakers remain within mathematical reach, as do the Nuggets, whose lead over the Jazz in the Northwest Division dipped to 5 1/2 games following Utah's win Wednesday in Denver.

"We are still in the race," Okur said.

"We have a chance. That's the answer. We have a chance," Kirilenko added when asked about the possibilities. "I mean, everything is in our hands. If we want to be in the playoffs, let's win . . . Eleven more. Win all of them."

The Jazz might not have needed to win any of them, however, had their current opening fivesome been together from the start.

For that to have happened, of course, plenty would have had to have fallen into place that did not.

Boozer could not have missed the season's first 49 games with a hamstring strain, like he did. Kirilenko could not have missed nearly a dozen games with back spasms and an ankle sprain. Harpring could not have sat out nine because of his surgically repaired right knee. And Williams would have had to have won the trust of Jazz coaches much earlier than he finally did.

But those are bygones.

The five are together, and finding their stride, having won two straight and four of their last seven games (4-of-8 total).

The real game to play now, then, has become guessing if Utah will run short of time before it can fully make up lost ground.