Utah Jazz need Korver's shot to return

SALT LAKE CITY — Paging Kyle Korver's shot. Come in, Kyle Korver's shot.

Anyone seen a spot-on, smooth-looking stroke?

It hasn't been missing long — just about a week, actually — but the Utah Jazz could sure use Korver's shot back if someone finds it.

Utah got by without it in Game 4, when Korver missed four of five attempts. But its absence was felt big-time in the Jazz's 116-102 Game 5 setback in Denver, where Korver whiffed on all six tries to turn one bad night into a mini two-game slump. In games 4 and 5, Korver only scored a total of three points on 1-for-11 shooting.

"I've got to make my shots," Korver said Thursday at practice.

Korver's woes Wednesday seemed all the more glaring, seeing as his Nuggets counterpart, J.R. Smith, returned from Finger-Pointing Twitterland to hit four of five 3-pointers in a 17-point performance. That was 17 points more than the Jazz got from their usually accurate sharpshooter — the one who set a new standard for 3-point accuracy in an NBA season this year.

Surprisingly, Korver has had four scoreless games in April, having also gone a combined 0-for-6 in losses to the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers along with an 0-for-2 outing in the 140-139 OKC Corral Shootout win.

Despite a couple of rough playoff outings, Korver's teammates still have plenty of confidence that he'll find the bottom of the hoop again and return to being a spark specialist. That's precisely what he did in the first three games of this series, when he hit 13 of 20 shots (65 percent) and averaged 11.3 points.

"Kyle is not going to shoot like that very often," Jazz forward Carlos Boozer said. "I think he's going to have a good shooting night (tonight)."

Jazz guard Deron Williams seemed certain Korver would rediscover his shot through repetition in practice.

"We're not worried about it," Williams said. "Kyle's a shooter, and he had an off game. It happens."

Compounding the problem Wednesday was that another shooter the Jazz have been relying on lately also had a rough offensive go. Starting small forward C.J. Miles had his lowest scoring output of the series with just nine points on four-for-10 shooting. It was the first time this series Miles didn't hit double digits after averaging 16.3 points in games 1-4.

Plus, Utah didn't get any reserve points from anybody but Paul Millsap, who had 16, and it was the fifth consecutive playoff game in which the bench's scoring decreased. Utah's subs have respectively scored 38, 33, 30, 17 and 16 as the series has progressed.