5 Utah Jazz priorities: What the team needs to do for the NBA's stretch run

For a team that had high expectations coming into the 2008-09 season, the Utah Jazz quickly turned into a collection of walking wounded, limping leapers and hobbled hoopsters.

To call it a painful season — on multiple levels — so far for the Jazz might be an understatement.

But heading into the stretch run, the Jazz have high hopes now that health woes that strained players, and the team's record are obstacles that are finally about to be overcome.

Just, maybe, in the nick of time for a final playoff push.

Carlos Boozer, for one, believes the next two months could be a whole lot more productive and successful for Utah than the past 31/2 tumultuous, injury-ridden, up-and-down, surgery-filled months.

And he and the Jazz are anxious to play the rest of the season out — emphasis on the play part, not the rest part, by the way.

They're optimistic, too.

"You can't look backwards," Boozer said. "All you can do is look forward and look ahead. So for us to know that we're going to be healthy soon is exciting."

Jazz coach Jerry Sloan credits the team for limiting the damage during what's been a hectic season injury-wise. Utah has missed 134 man-games to injuries already, and it's yet to put the lineup that was supposed to start the season on the floor at the same time.

"The guys have done a good job trying to hang in there," Sloan said.

The Jazz, however, know that just hanging in there might not be enough to earn them one of eight postseason spots in the uber-competitive Western Conference.

"There's a lot more to be done to try to get to the playoffs," Sloan said. "I'm anxious to see who we are in this last part of the season."

Here are five keys that might determine whether the Jazz will be looking at the lottery draft or doing some playoff planning come mid-April:

1.GET WELL — AND SOON, PLEASE

Since the 2004-05 season, the Jazz have gone 68-76 with Boozer out of the lineup. They're even worse without Andrei Kirilenko, having gone just 34-57 over the years without the Russian forward's services.