SALT LAKE CITY – For a team that hasn't been there since 2004, the playoffs are now for a Timberwolves team that has six games left after Friday's 98-85 loss at Utah.
Or so says interim head coach Sam Mitchell.
And if his team isn't getting there the old-fashioned way, at least the Wolves could have something to say about who reaches the Western Conference playoff and who doesn't.
Utah, Dallas and Houston essentially are in a dead heat for the West's final two playoff spots, and the Wolves play them all in the season's final 13 days, starting with Friday's game when the Jazz kept hold of that eighth and final spot by outplaying the Wolves in spurts.
Playing a Jazz team missing injured star forward Derrick Favors on Friday, the Wolves lost to Utah for the second time in six days, undone by a 12-0 Jazz run that ended one half and started the next and by a 15-4 run that ended the third quarter and started the fourth.
At least this time, Mitchell didn't walk out of his postgame interview after 31 seconds, as he did following Wednesday's lopsided home loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.
"Our guys played hard, we competed," Mitchell said. "Their team is long. They are big. They are physical. … We got shots and they got shots. They made theirs, we missed ours and we never could recover."
The Jazz led by as many as 15 points in the fourth quarter. By then, the only real drama was whether Wolves forward Andrew Wiggins would miss two free throws, thus giving everyone in the home crowd a free chicken sandwich, with 3½ minutes left. (He did.)
Wiggins scored half of his 24 points in the first quarter.
Teammate Karl-Anthony Towns scored 14 of his 17 points within just a three-minute span that got the Wolves back within a point midway through the third quarter before the Jazz pulled away.
"I don't know, I was taking whatever they gave me," said Towns, who scored two points in the first half. "I didn't know how much I scored. I didn't know how many times I scored. I was just taking whatever was given to me."
Wolves rookie Nemanja Bjelica played 36 minutes — his most since he played 40 minutes at Chicago in the season's fifth game — because he was productive, delivering a 15-point, eight-rebound performance while the Wolves' starting backcourt of Ricky Rubio and Zach LaVine shot 3-for-17 combined.
"It was nice to see him playing like he was earlier in the season," Mitchell said of Bjelica.
All of which yielded the Wolves' 51st loss in 76 games. But Friday's game did provide the kind of stage and experience Mitchell hopes prove valuable for his young team.
"For our team, we want to use these games," Mitchell said. "We're playing teams that are fighting for something. Even though we're not going to make the playoffs, this is how it's going to be on the road if you make the playoffs. … Learn from it now because this is how it's going to be one day when you're fighting for the playoffs or you're in the playoffs."
The Mavericks visit Target Center on Sunday afternoon and the Rockets come to town for the season's second-to-last game, on April 11.
"We're going out there to win every game, we're not going to let anybody pass," LaVine said before Friday's loss.
"Yeah, if we don't make it, neither do y'all."
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