Utah Jazz: Earl Watson, Raja Bell in starting lineup tonight

SALT LAKE CITY — The lineup that struggled at the beginning of Thursday's game for the Utah Jazz will get a second chance tonight.

Because of injuries, Earl Watson and Raja Bell will be starters again when the Jazz host the Dallas Mavericks in a 7 p.m. tipoff at EnergySolutions Arena.

Utah (36-37) will attempt to bring its record back to .500 without Devin Harris and Andrei Kirilenko, who will join Mehmet Okur (back) on the sideline due to injuries.

This will be Harris' third consecutive game he'll miss due to his re-strained right hamstring. Originally tweaked a couple of weeks ago, Harris' hammy acted up again three minutes into Utah's loss Monday at Memphis.

Kirilenko, meanwhile, suffered a contusion of the peroneal nerve in his left knee Wednesday at Oklahoma City. He has been out since that first-half injury, also missing Thursday's overtime loss to New Orleans.

This will be the second game this season that Watson, Bell, C.J. Miles, Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson have started together. Things didn't begin so well Thursday against the Hornets, with the Jazz falling behind 9-0 before rallying to take a 32-27 lead by the end of the first quarter.

Utah ended up losing the game 121-117 in overtime after Emeka Okafor hit a wild, off-balanced shot at the buzzer from 20 feet out following a full-court inbounds pass with 1.3 seconds left.

In the aftermath, both Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin and Millsap have said that it would have been best had the power forward purposely missed his second free throw in the last seconds to prevent the Hornets' game-tying situation from happening.

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