Test time

DENVER — His starting center, Mehmet Okur, just ruptured his Achilles tendon Saturday night and soon — probably either Tuesday or Wednesday — will undergo surgery.
His would-be starting small forward, Andrei Kirilenko, is out for the series with a re-strained calf.
His starting power forward, Carlos Boozer, is playing with a stomach muscle that hurt him enough he couldn’t play just last Wednesday.
His fill-in starting small forward, C.J. Miles, got hit in the chest so hard Saturday that he went back to the lockerroom and threw up, then returned, only to jam a finger.
His starting point guard, Deron Williams, is dinged with bumps and bruises of all sorts.
(At least his starting shooting guard, rookie Wesley Matthews, has nothing he’s complaining about.)
And the lineup his club will put on the floor for Monday night’s Game 2 of the Jazz-Denver Nuggets first-round NBA playoff series will include two young bigs who don’t often play much, Kyrylo Fesenko and Kosta Koufos.
If Jazz general manager Kevin O’Connor is down, he isn’t letting on too much.
Thank longtime coach Jerry Sloan for that.
“I like the guy we have coaching (in) an underdog role,” O’Connor said prior to practice today.
If anything, O’Connor suggested, at least all the obstacles the Jazz have to face will test them.
“If we start to feel sorry for ourselves and pull a woe-is-me act, we’ll get run over,” the Jazz GM said. “You know, this is when hopefully our team bounces back and shows they can compete.”

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