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There will be a lot of pressure on Jazz point guard Trey Burke on Friday night.

Around the NBA, floor leaders are a thing. Effective point guards are a dime a dozen, and seemingly every team has someone who can break a defense down at will.

The Phoenix Suns have three. Goran Dragic, Isaiah Thomas and Eric Bledsoe are all uniquely talented individually. The fact that they are all the same team offers headaches for opposing point guards around the league.

"It's going to be tough," Burke said. "That's a team that likes to play fast, and they like to play with pace. They get into the lane, and they can score at the basket, or on the perimeter. We're going to have to get back on defense, and we're going to have to take care of the basketball. That's going to be important."

Burke's improvement in all areas has been striking during the preseason. He's gotten better running the offense, and he's been better defensively. He's run the team and he has facilitated. Most importantly, he's figured out how to get others involved, while looking for his own offense.

Those factors offer evidence that the Jazz may be in good hands once the regular season begins on Wednesday night. A day after it was announced Steve Nash would be out for the remainder of the season with a balky back, Burke said he aims to play like the former MVP point guard.

"He's obviously one of the best," Burke said. "It's just tough to see him go out like this. A lot of point guards want to emulate the way he played the position."

Jazz coach Quin Snyder said there won't be any minutes restrictions on his players on Friday and that he expects everyone to be available. The Jazz are playing their finale, and have four days between that and their opener against the Houston Rockets.

Can Utah match the pace and the energy of the Suns? That will be one of the main story lines for Friday's game.

"They play a unique style," Snyder said. "You have to build a wall defensively, and we're going to have to be incredibly sound on the basketball. It's a difficult challenge, but it's something that we're going to have to do."

The Suns don't have a dominant post player. But they have the well-known guard play and they surround those guards with 3-point shooting on the perimeter. It makes them one of the toughest teams to cover in the NBA. The two teams will see one another next Saturday as well. And for the Jazz, that matchup will be their third game in four nights.

— Tony Jones