Utah Jazz notebook: Nuggets will face Jazz with suspended 'Melo

All-Star Carmelo Anthony will not play in the Jazz's season-opener against Denver on Wednesday night due to a team-imposed disciplinary suspension.

Utah's next two games after that are against the Los Angeles Clippers, whose newly signed star point guard — Baron Davis — reportedly is questionable for their own opener due to a partially torn finger ligament.

The Jazz furthermore play four of their five first games at home, and that same five includes four games against non-playoff teams from last season.

The five, as a sweet topper, are spread over a comfy 10-day period.

Cake, right?

Not so in the world according to Jerry Sloan.

"If you're gonna lay out there," the Jazz coach said Monday, "and listen to somebody tell you you've got five easy games or four easy games, or whatever the case may be, somebody's not playing here and there, you're just cruisin' for a bruisin'."

TEAM PLAYER: Sloan continues to heap praise on veteran forward Andrei Kirilenko for accepting his new role as the Jazz's sixth man.

"When we asked him about doing it, he said, 'Do whatever you want to do.' I think that says a lot about him," Sloan said Monday. "I don't know if you would go to every player on your team and ask him to come off the bench, if they would accept that.

"I think that's a tremendous thing on his part, to accept it, for whatever the team needs to do. I think that says a lot about how he likes to play."

With Kirilenko coming off the bench, swingman C.J. Miles will start at small forward against Denver.

Asked for the umpteenth time if the switch from starter to sub for Kirilenko is a long-term one, Sloan repeated his standard response to the query: "We'll see how it goes," he said.

HARPRING DOUBTFUL: The Jazz continue to call veteran forward Matt Harpring, who still is rehabbing from an offseason ankle surgery and subsequent infection in the joint, "doubtful" for Wednesday's opener.

"I've got to go ahead and move on if he's not able to play," Sloan said Monday. "That's what I have to look at, at this point."

Meanwhile, veteran big man Jarron Collins (severe triceps tendinitis) continues to be deemed "day-to-day" by the team.