Salt Lake City, UT (My Sportsbook) - The Seattle SuperSonics try for their sixth straight win when they travel to Utah to take on the Jazz at Delta Center.
Seattle is coming off a 92-83 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves. Ray Allen continues to pay dividends since coming over from the Milwaukee Bucks at the trading deadline. Allen scored 29 points, grabbed nine rebounds and dished out six assists in the victory.
Allen is definitely enjoying his new surroundings.
"There's nothing special to our game plan except that we're playing hard, we're playing together and we're having fun," said Allen. "Even the guys sitting on the bench, they look out on the floor and see how much fun we're having. Anytime you have that much fun, you just want to be a part of it."
Brent Barry scored 19 points and Rashard Lewis added 17 points to the victory.
Seattle's latest surge has it entertaining at least slim playoff hopes. The Sonics are 3 1/2 games behind the eighth-seeded Phoenix Suns for the final playoff berth in the Western Conference.
Utah snapped a three-game slide with a 91-90 victory over the New Jersey Nets its last time out. Karl Malone scored 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds, and DeShawn Stevenson added 18 to the win. Andrei Kirilenko, who finished with 15 points, converted a John Stockton misfire at the buzzer to account for the final tally. Officials reviewed the replays to make sure time had not expired, and indeed the bucket beat the buzzer.
"Whatever we were running we didn't do it very well," Stockton said. "So there it was with the time running down and not much to do, so I just tried to get it up there somewhere. It basically was a cast-off, and Andrei made a play out of it. It was a no-chance shot."
Utah is currently the sixth seed in the Western Conference, 1 1/2 games ahead of the seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers and 4 1/2 games behind the fifth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Jazz are 21-9 at home and have a 21-15 mark within the Western Conference.
The two teams have split a pair of meetings thus far this season with the home team prevailing in each case. Utah has won nine of the last 11 meetings between the teams.
Seattle leads the all-time series 69-54.
