Minnesota (26-33) at Utah (29-31) 9:00 pm EST
SALT LAKE CITY (Ticker) - Both the Minnesota Timberwolves and
Utah Jazz are seeing chances at a Northwest Division title slip
away by the day.
The teams will try to reverse that trend when they meet for the
third time this season Wednesday.
Not far removed from forging a three-team race in the division
with the Denver Nuggets, the Timberwolves and Jazz have fallen
back a bit. Entering Wednesday, both are on the outside looking
in at the Western Conference playoff race, and second-place
Utah trails Denver by 3 1/2 games in the division.
Minnesota, which is opening a season-high six-game road trip, is
six games back of the Nuggets after Tuesday's 93-87 loss to
Houston that capped a 2-1 homestand. It dropped the
Timberwolves to 7-12 since their seven-player trade with Boston
in late January.
Marcus Banks and Mark Blount, two of the players in that swap,
combined to score 44 points, but Ricky Davis, the main component
in the deal, had 14 on just 4-of-16 shooting.
Utah has exchanged wins and losses in its last eight games,
opening a three-game homestand with a 90-85 victory over Orlando
on Monday. Mehmet Okur scored 22 points and Andrei Kirilenko
chipped in 18, nine rebounds and six blocked shots.
The road team has won the first two meetings between the teams
this season.





