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Will one of the Jazz's biggest performers be in the lineup for the biggest game of the year?
That's to be determined.
Jazz power forward Derrick Favors is listed as questionable for tonight's game against the Mavericks after sitting out Sunday's contest in Denver with a sore knee. The Jazz held a rare shootaround on the morning of a back-to-back, but spent their time walking through their game plan rather than doing the kind of physical activity that would test Favors' knee.
"It's always hard to evaluate," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said of Favors' status. "You can look at somebody and see every little move they make and try to read something into it. We'll see how he feels tonight."
Favors, the Jazz's second leading scorer, was an extremely late scratch Sunday. The forward went as far as to walk out onto the court for the introduction of the Jazz's starting lineup before returning to the bench for the rest of the evening.
"During the course of a day, there's always things, particularly with a knee, that can flare up before a game when you start running on it and that's what happened," Snyder said.
Given the magnitude of tonight's game, it stands to reason that Favors will play if he's at all capable of giving it a go.
As Jazz center Rudy Gobert said Sunday, "I told Derrick if he wasn't feeling good tonight that he shouldn't play because we are really going to need him for tomorrow night's game. We don't need him being 50 percent for tonight's game and 50 percent for tomorrow's game. We will need him to be 100 percent for tomorrow's game."
If Favors cannot play, it's likely that rookie Trey Lyles would start in his place. Lyles scored a season-high 20 points after getting a 15-second heads up that he would be starting for Favors on Sunday in Denver.
"He's been great for us every time that Fav has had to be out," forward Gordon Hayward said of Lyles. "I remember last time we played in Dallas he was really good attacking Dirk [Nowitzki], attacking some of their bigs. He's a matchup problem for a lot of guys in the league and we're going to need his energy."
A banged up backcourt
The Mavericks are dealing with some uncertainty because of injury, too, with their top two point guards likely to be game-time decisions tonight at Vivint Arena.
J.J. Barea says he will do everything he can to play Monday in Utah, calling it the "game of the year." He'll talk to the training staff.
— Earl K. Sneed (@EarlKSneed) April 10, 2016
Rick Carlisle on Deron Williams' availability tomorrow vs. Jazz: "That situation is going to be hour to hour, I would think."
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) April 10, 2016
The playoff picture
— Aaron Falk (@tribjazz) April 11, 2016
Tonight is unquestionably the biggest game of the Jazz's season. A win tonight against the Mavericks and a Rockets loss at Minnesota would clinch a playoff berth for Snyder's squad.
Right now, everything from the six seed to an early vacation is in play for the Jazz.
Best case scenario: Utah, with a game lead over Houston, can assure itself a playoff berth with wins over Dallas on Monday and the Lakers on Wednesday. If they do that and Memphis drops its final two games, the Jazz would jump to sixth place by virtue of a tiebreaker and would face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.
Worst case scenario: If the Jazz lose out or even split these last two games and Houston takes care of lottery bound Minnesota and Sacramento, the Jazz would be out of the playoffs.
— Aaron Falk