Utah Jazz: Kirilenko hopes to return before playoffs end

DENVER — While the Jazz are in Denver doing their thing with the Nuggets in the first round of the NBA playoffs, Andrei Kirilenko remains in Utah dealing with a calf injury.

After re-straining his calf during a 2-on-2 workout Thursday, Kirilenko returned to receiving hyperbaric-chamber treatment to promote faster healing, his agent, Marc Fleisher, said Saturday.

The Jazz said Friday that Kirilenko — who missed 15 of the team's last 17 regular-season games because of the injury — will be out at least two weeks.

Fleisher wasn't sure how much longer beyond then it will be before his client — the Jazz's starting small forward most of this season — can return.

But surgery, the agent suggested, is not a treatment option under consideration.

"My understanding is that this is non-surgical," the Connecticut-based Fleisher said by phone. "I know the Jazz doctors believe that."

A second-opinion reading of recent Kirilenko MRI results by a specialist back East confirmed that, Fleisher said, and nothing about Thursday's re-injury suggests surgery will be needed.

Over the past five weeks or so, Kirilenko — who could be helping the Jazz handle Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony if he were able to play — has strained muscles in three different areas of the same lower-left calf area.

"I can't believe he's had three of 'em," teammate Carlos Boozer said. "I think it's unfortunate for him to have three different spots (hurt). But I know A.K.'s doing everything he can do to get back."

Jazz point guard Deron Williams expressed similar sentiments.

"I'm sure he wants to play," Williams said of Kirilenko, an NBA All-Star in 2004 and FIBA's European Player of the Year in 2007, "and, you know, it's probably frustrating because it's a couple weeks and he feels like he's about to come back and then he goes out and reinjures it.

"It's kind of similar to Booz (Boozer) a couple years ago with his hamstring," Williams added. "You want to get out there, but with those muscle strains, you can feel good, and then one little tweak and you're back to square one."

The latest strain, Fleisher said, is "more akin" to the first and should require a shorter rehab period than the second.

But it's a setback for Kirilenko, and the Jazz, nonetheless.