Harping plans to rejoin the Jazz for Sunday's game against Houston

SAN ANTONIO — The Jazz will be without veteran backup small forward Matt Harpring for tonight's game at San Antonio, the team said Thursday. Harpring missed Wednesday's Northwest Division championship-clinching win over Minnesota due to a stomach virus that left him dehydrated.

He went to a local hospital Wednesday to replenish fluids via an IV but wasn't ready to travel Thursday. Current plans call for Harpring to fly Saturday to Houston and rejoin the team there for its game Sunday against the Rockets.

"He's out of the hospital, and he's home resting," Jazz basketball operations senior vice president Kevin O'Connor. "(But) he'll ready to go Sunday."

Harpring missed two others games this season due to a stomach virus that required a hospital visit.

The Jazz also revealed Thursday that rookie backup power forward Paul Millsap has an avulsion fracture on the knuckle below the pinkie finger on his right hand.

Millsap, however, did travel and does plan to play tonight.

"He's gonna play with it taped ... and he's gonna play as pain dictates," O'Connor said of Millsap, injured when the finger got caught in a jersey Wednesday. "And when he's not playing, he's gonna have it in a splint.

"There's no chance of further injury with it," O'Connor added. "We wouldn't put him out there if there (was)."

Meanwhile, backup shooting guard Gordan Giricek — who has missed the past six games with bruised ribs — remains "day to day."

"It's really on Giri," O'Connor said. "When he feels he can play, and tolerate the hitting and that kind of stuff, then he'll go."

FOCUS, FOCUS: The Jazz refused to allow Denver's acquisition of All-Star guard Allen Iverson from Philadelphia earlier this season to disrupt their focus on winning the Northwest title, veteran guard Derek Fisher suggested after Utah wrapped up its first division championship since the 1999-2000 season.

"I don't know if people doubted that we would do it, but I do think that a lot of people were intrigued by the talent and the ability that the Nuggets team would have with Iverson coming over and then once Carmelo (Anthony, who had served a lengthy NBA-imposed suspension) got back into the lineup," Fisher said. "As far as us comparing ourselves to them, or worrying about what they were gonna do — I think we just tried to stay focused on our path."