With six games to play in the regular season, the Utah Jazz's playoff hopes are on life support, at best.
But as coaches and players alike will attest, there is still a pulse.
"We're still alive and that's the important thing," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan after his team did what it was supposed to do Saturday night in the Delta Center in beating the Portland Trail Blazers — the worst team in the NBA — 110-93.
Matt Harpring, who led the Jazz with a team-high 29 points and six assists, sounded just like his coach.
"We're still alive," said Harpring. "We've won two in a row. You never know what will happen. We could go on a good winning streak right here and maybe the Lakers lose, Sacramento loses and who knows."
While the playoffs are still a longshot, the Jazz managed to make up ground on both the idle Kings and Lakers — who are now 2 1/2 games ahead of Utah — as well as the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, who lost to Dallas on Saturday and now have an identical 37-39 record as Utah.
Utah plays two more home games next — against the Rockets Monday and Nuggets on Wednesday — before a key head-to-head game against the Hornets on Friday in Oklahoma City.
"The games mean still something," said Sloan. "It's not like you just throw (the ball) out there and you don't care if you win or lose."
The Lakers' magic number over the Jazz now stands at four — meaning any combination of four Jazz losses and Lakers wins will eliminate Utah. The Kings, meanwhile, have a magic number of three since they own the tie-breaker advantage over Utah.
While the Blazers have simply been awful the past couple of months — they are just 4-27 since early February — they actually put up a solid fight on Saturday night. Portland trailed by just eight points with nine minutes to play and had several chances to close the gap.
But Andrei Kirilenko came up big on both ends of the court down the stretch to ensure the Jazz victory. Kirilenko had another outstanding all-around game, finishing with 24 points, five assists, nine rebounds and — perhaps most importantly — seven blocked shots.
"Andrei was terrific in helping our people (defensively)," said Sloan. "He had seven blocked shots which was really life saving coming down the stretch because their momentum picked up there at the end."
The young Blazers were led by Zach Randolph's 28 points and nine boards, while Darius Miles had 13 points before leaving the game with a knee injury.
"It's tough for them to play," said Kirilenko, "because there's no motivation."
Blazers coach Nate McMillan liked some of what he saw from his team.
"I loved (our) aggressiveness in getting to the free throw line 38 times," said McMillan. "But only making 57 percent — missing 16 free throws in a tight game like this . . . you basically just shoot yourself in the foot."
The Jazz, despite playing in a back-to-back situation after Friday night's win at Minnesota, got off to a fast start. Scoring almost at will inside in the opening minutes, the Jazz jumped out to a 14-3 lead. Utah had 20 points in the paint in the first quarter alone.
Portland rallied to pull within three points late in the second quarter, but could never get any closer.
In addition to Harpring and Kirilenko, the Jazz had three other players reach double figures. Mehmet Okur scored 18 points with 10 boards, while Carlos Boozed and Keith McLeod added 11 points each.
The Jazz will take their modest two-game winning streak into Monday's game against the Rockets.
They can't guarantee themselves a playoff berth even if they win all the rest of their six games, but Sloan wants his team to "just keep fighting and playing until the season is over."
And for now, at least, the Jazz are sill alive.
JAZZ NOTES:Greg Ostertag played for just over two minutes in the third quarter, getting one assist and two fouls. It was just the second game Ostertag has played in over the past dozen games . . . Kirilenko went over to shake McMillan's hand and apologize for dunking in the final seconds of last week's Jazz win over the Blazers in Portland . . . Utah swept the season series with the Blazers for the first time since the 1988-89 season.
E-mail: lojo@desnews.com