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Road-weary Jazz continue fight for home-court advantage

Apr 6, 2007 - 5:29 PM Utah (48-26) at Sacramento (30-44) 10:00 pm EDT

SACRAMENTO, California (Ticker) - With their shaky road record, the Utah Jazz need to be playing on their home floor come playoff time.

The Jazz look to continue their push for home-court advantage in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs when they face the sliding Sacramento Kings on Friday.

Utah enters this contest 1 1/2 games in front Houston (47-28) for fourth place and home-court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs.

It may be key for Utah to gain the fourth spot since it is 29-7 at home, compared to 19-19 on the road.

On Wednesday, the Jazz suffered a disappointing road loss with a 94-89 setback at Portland.

Sacramento continued its slide with Wednesday's 120-115 loss at Denver.

Ron Artest scored 32 points for the Kings, who have lost 12 of their last 14 games to fall out of playoff contention - seven games back of the Clippers (37-37) for the West's final playoff spot with just eight contests left.