Utah Jazz hurt without Okur and Kirilenko

MINNEAPOLIS — The Jazz were missing two starters Sunday in Minnesota — ailing center Mehmet Okur, and injured small forward Andrei Kirilenko — and it made a difference.

And that was before starting shooting guard Ronnie Brewer sustained a strained right groin.

"We're not as good a team without two of our starters," coach Jerry Sloan said after Utah's 110-103 loss to the Timberwolves. "There's no question about that. Let's be honest about it."

With Okur not traveling due to a stomach flu that also kept him out of Friday's win over the Los Angeles Clippers, the Timberwolves altered the usual way teams defend point guard Deron Williams.

Minnesota cheated their big man guarding power forward Carlos Boozer over toward Williams on pick-and-rolls, and picked up Boozer with the center that normally would stick with the strong outside-shooting Okur.

"It definitely would have helped to have had Memo out there spotting up," Williams said. "He would have took away from some of that help. You know, you can't really help off Memo that much."

The Jazz are calling Okur, who was replaced in Sunday's starting lineup by backup Jarron Collins, "possible" for tonight's game against Washington.

They're calling Kirilenko, who didn't play Sunday due to an injured right calf, "questionable" for tonight.

The Jazz originally said Kirilenko left Friday's game against the Clippers due to "muscle spasms" in the calf, but there's more to it than that. Kirilenko on Friday said he has a hematoma, and the bruise is agitating a nerve in the calf.

"It's not that bad," said Kirilenko, who also revealed an MRI exam was performed on the bruised calf. "It's just like one spot on the calf. Like about two weeks ago I hit it. This was like a regular bruise, and didn't feel really like bad. (But) just probably like last three, four days, it feels like one spot is like sharp and sore.

"When you warm up, you can go for like 10 minutes," he added. "Then it just starts, like, sharpening there. I'm short of every step. Defensively I couldn't really like stop the guy, because I don't have extra step."

Kirilenko, wearing what he said is an "uncomfortable" walking boot that makes the injuries look "more serious" that it really is, wasn't sure Sunday when he'd return.

"I have no idea," he said. "That's hard to say. But I don't think it's gonna take long, because you just need to rest it a little bit and let the blood go away.