<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The Jazz may not know for certain until game time. But more and more it's looking like after missing seven straight games with a sprained right ankle, forward Andrei Kirilenko will return tonight against Indiana at the Delta Center. "Nobody tells me," Kirilenko said Monday, "but it feels like 'Yes.' " If that's indeed the case, the Jazz can let out a collective shout of 'Yes.' Utah is a different team with Kirilenko in the lineup. A better team. A more positive-thinking team. Teammates suggest as much, and words perhaps are more telling than any statistics ever could be. "He's huge for us," said big man Mehmet Okur, who with Kirilenko sidelined and Carlos Boozer out all season with a strained hamstring has assumed season-long team-high scoring honors over the Jazz's first dozen games of 2005-06. "Everybody has to step up without him. With him, he makes us a good team and makes our job easy." How? "A 3 guy that can block shots like he does really makes him special, because with him and 'Tag (center Greg Ostertag) and Memo (Okur) down there, that's a lot of size," guard Devin Brown said. "You're able to get away with gambling a little bit, so to speak. He definitely brings a defensive presence. It's amazing how long he is, and what he can get to." When Brown played in recent years for San Antonio, the Spurs did not game-plan differently for Utah depending on whether or not Kirilenko was playing. But when he did play, flags were in the air.</div> <div align="center">Source</div>
