Goodbye lottery, hello playoffs.
That's what the Jazz officially were able to say Sunday night, after the Los Angeles Lakers beat Golden State and made the Warriors the seventh Western Conference team incapable of catching Utah before the 2006-07 regular season ends.
As a result, the Northwest Division-leading Jazz have clinched their first postseason berth since 2003 — a three-year drought that followed 20 consecutive playoff seasons, including 18 collectively spurred by the dynamic duo of John Stockton and Karl Malone.
It's a monumental accomplishment indeed for coach Jerry Sloan's 45-24 club, which had non-losing seasons in both 2003-04 and 2005-06 — but failed to qualify for postseason play in those two post Stockton-and-Malone era seasons.
"It's definitely important — for us, for the fans, for the organization, for (Jazz owner) Larry Miller," said point guard Deron Williams, who is toward the tail end of his second season at the position Stockton manned for most of two decades. "You know, he (Miller) has been wanting it for a while — and he's not used to not being in the playoffs.
"So, it definitely feels good."
How good?
"It means a lot, because finally we are playing all together this year," said center Mehmet Okur, who is in his third season with the Jazz after spending two in Detroit, including one (2003-04) in which the Pistons won an NBA championship. "Our chemistry has been great ... because we want to be a great team."
The Jazz overachieved their way to a 41-41 record in 2003-04, then — after an '04 summer that featured the additions via free agency of not only Okur but also former Cleveland Cavaliers power forward Carlos Boozer, who has stepped into Malone's old spot and emerged as Utah's leading scorer and rebounder this season — endured two particularly injury-plagued seasons that followed.
Three straight non-playoff years, three straight appearances as a lottery team in the NBA Draft.
Utah finished just 26-56 during a 2004-05 season in which Boozer missed 31 games with a foot injury, helping the Jazz to land ex-University of Illinois point Deron Williams with the 2005 draft's No. 3 overall selection.
With Boozer finally healthy after missing 49 games with a hamstring injury last season, this, then, was the season it was supposed to all come back together for the Jazz.
And it has.
With both Boozer and Okur named first-time NBA All-Stars, Utah has been as many as 24 games over .500 this season and has enjoyed one eight-game win streak. The Jazz are 34-4 when leading entering the fourth quarter, 36-9 when scoring 100-plus points and 27-7 (already five victories better than last season) at home. After beating Memphis on Saturday they also have won five in a row at EnergySolutions.
"That was our goal all of last year — to get the playoffs — (but) we didn't achieve that," Williams said.
"Now that we've got everybody healthy this year," he added, "it's been a lot better for us — and we look forward to not just being in the playoffs, but, hopefully, winning a couple series in the playoffs and ultimately winning the championship."
To further that cause, the Jazz are hoping to at least secure homecourt advantage in their first opening-round series — which, at least for now, is shaping up as a probable meeting with the Houston Rockets — since being bounced in 2003 by the Sacramento Kings.
Tonight, that would mean a home win over Washington — their final Eastern Conference opponent of the season.
Utah is 18-11 vs. East teams so far, 11-3 at home.
The Jazz also are an admirable 27-13 against Western Conference teams — including a combined 6-2 record against the three teams above them in the NBA standings, league-leading Dallas (1-1), Phoenix (3-0) and San Antonio (2-1).
It's for all those reasons and perhaps more that optimism seems so high as the Jazz — even though three of their next four opponents (Washington, San Antonio and Houston) playoff-bound — head into their final 13 games of the season.
"I think we felt all year that we were going to make the playoffs, especially after our (12-1) start," Williams said. "You know, we struggled a little bit (including an 0-for-4 Eastern road trip earlier this month), but, still, we knew that we were a playoff team, regardless."
Not that they had much other choice.
"The bottom line," Sloan said, "is this team had to get to the playoffs."
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com