Utah Jazz happy to have Korver back contributing

SALT LAKE CITY — If there is a life lesson to be gained from what he's endured the past couple months, Kyle Korver has no doubt what it would be.

"I've got a huge lesson in patience," said Korver, the Jazz swingman slow to bounce back from late-October arthroscopic knee surgery that cost him all of November and much of December.

"I guess that's probably good for me in the long run," Korver added, "but I'm hoping it's over."

Korver didn't play in the season's first 23 games, and sat for five of the following 10.

But heading into tonight's game against Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat, the start of a three-game homestand that also has Cleveland visiting on Thursday and Milwaukee on Saturday, Korver has played in four straight.

And his shot has fallen with frequency in each of the past three, including a 5-for-5 effort — with two of those coming from 3-point range — while playing only in the fourth quarter of Saturday night's win at Dallas.

Korver also made 3-of-4 in a win over Memphis last Wednesday, and 4-of-5 in Friday's loss at Memphis.

That's 12-for-14, or 85.7 percent, over three games.

"My shot's felt good," he said.

"It's just waiting for this knee to get right," added Korver, who had a bone spur removed from his left knee just a few months following offseason surgery to address scar tissue in his shooting wrist. "It's been a process. It (the knee) is pretty sore right now. You can tell in watching, there's still some things that are hard for me to do. But it's just nice to be back out on the floor a little bit, and try to help whenever I can."

The Jazz, for their part, are happy to have him — even if he is stuck for now on their depth chart behind fellow swingmen Ronnie Brewer, C.J. Miles, Andrei Kirilenko and rookie Wesley Matthews.

Along with Miles, who hit 10-of-16 in Wednesday's win over Memphis but was 0-for-7 in Friday's loss at Memphis, Korver offers an outside shooting presence Utah sorely has been lacking.

"I think for us we need guys that can shoot like that because it opens up the middle for me and people that are going in and mixing it up and doing our thing," power forward Carlos Boozer said.

"It's a huge difference," point guard Deron Williams added after Korver's final-quarter shooting against the Mavericks helped the Jazz maintain their double-digit lead down the stretch in Dallas. "If we can get both of those guys (Korver and Miles) going at the same time, it's gonna be even better."