DENVER — Both starting power forward Carlos Boozer and starting center Mehmet Okur will play in tonight's Game 1 of the Jazz's first-round NBA playoff series against Denver, but Okur will receive a pain-killing injection before he does.
Okur has been dealing with tendinitis in his left Achilles, so he's decided to get a shot "right before the game starts."
"It's still sore," he said after a shootaround this morning at the Pepsi Center here.
Boozer, listed as a gametime decision by the Jazz, said after the shootaround that he's "definitely" playing.
"It feels good," the Jazz's leading scorer and rebounder said.
He has a strained right oblique muscle that caused him to miss Wednesday's regular season-ending loss to Phoenix, but said today that he didn't think the injury would have negative impact on his ability to shoot or jump.
"I wasn't able to (play Wednesday)," Boozer said. "I'd have hurt my team more than I would have helped my team. But I'm looking forward to tonight's game."
Boozer also said he'll play with "padding" — actually a heat-producing patch — over the injured area.
Not playing tonight is small forward Andrei Kirilenko, out for at least two weeks because of the strained left calf that caused him to miss 15 of Utah's final 17 regular-season games.
Kirilenko — re-injured during a workout Thursday — did not travel with the team.
He instead remained in Utah to undergo what has been described by some with the Jazz as additional testing and exploration of treatment options.
With Kirilenko absent, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said today that starting small forward C.J. Miles will get first shot at defending Nuggets scoring leader Carmelo Anthony.
e-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com