Can Donyell Marshall give the Jazz the next lift they need?
After a 6-0 Eastern road trip, the Jazz got clobbered in Sacramento Tuesday, then returned home — for the first time in 26 days — to face the Grizzlies, who inexplicably had already beaten Utah twice this season.
With Marshall seeing his first extended minutes in more than a month and leading the team in scoring, the Jazz walked all over the shorthanded Grizz Thursday night.
But that was Memphis. Today's foe at the Delta Center is Minnesota, another team that has thumped the Jazz twice, and that was when they had Marshall. In fact, the Timberwolves' last victory over Utah came in the middle of a stretch of seven Jazz wins in eight games.
If the Jazz are ever to convince their fans they've improved of late, they need to start beating teams like the Timberwolves.
And Marshall will have to be a key to that. One of the impressive things about the Jazz's recent success is that it came with their second-leading scorer, and the No. 3 field-goal shooter in the league, out with first a bruised hip, then a strained groin.
Marshall returned to action with a cameo appearance against the Kings, then had a field day against the undermanned Grizzlies, scoring a team-high 20 in 22 minutes, including a couple of alley-oop dunks, with six rebounds.
But he didn't come out of the blocks like this would be a big night. In the first half Marshall made just two of eight shots, missed a couple easy attempts and got stuffed a couple times. Even when he was clearly struggling, his teammates kept encouraging him to stay with it.
"They just kept going to me," he said. "Karl (Malone) was trying to help me get in a rhythm."
He found that rhythm in the second half, making six of eight shots. He admitted probably being a little tentative at first, probably no doubt worried about a reoccurrence of his injury.
"I definitely got better as the game went on," Marshall said. "I was a little frustrated early, missing a lot of layups. I still have a long way to go, but it definitely felt good, especially to get up above the rim a couple of times without any pain.
"That was something I needed, especially with the alley-oop (John) Starks gave me, to be able to extend and get hit at the same time . . . When you can finish, it does a lot for your confidence."
Like Marshall, coach Jerry Sloan approached the whole question of playing time with some fear.
"I was a little bit concerned about how many minutes to play him off the bench and how long of an extended period of time I would play him," Sloan said.
With the game well in hand in the closing minutes, Sloan asked Marshall if he'd like to go back in.
"I didn't want to try to embarrass him or anything — but I wanted to try to put him in a situation where I could see if he wanted a few more minutes," Sloan said. "I wanted to make sure he was OK to do that, but he was a little concerned about going out after sitting down."
Today's opponent should provide Marshall a much more revealing test. The Timberwolves already had a talented frontline when they added center Marc Jackson from the Warriors on trade-deadline day.
"They're a tough team," Marshall said of Minnesota, which trails Dallas in the Midwest Division standings by a game. "They've done well with their zone (defense) against us the first two games."
Much has been made of the fact Utah has a 1-11 record against the five best teams in the Western Conference — which includes the Timberwolves — but Marshall says the Jazz need to stop dwelling on that.
"We just need to play our style of basketball, quit worrying about what other teams are doing and play our game," he said.
And his playing at all has got to be a big part of that.