Foye clears path for Utah Jazz's win

Randy Foye's goal is to enter each and every basketball game in an unconscious state.

Never does he want to be cold, never hesitant. His job is to shoot the ball from the perimeter. That's where his entire being as an NBA player is born. And on Friday night, Foye did his job in exemplary fashion.

The Utah Jazz kept their fledgling playoff hopes alive at EnergySolutions Arena with a 107-100 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. Rightfully, the story was Al Jefferson and his inability to be stopped.

But Foye controlled the game within the game, taking full advantage of wide-open looks at the basket to knock home five 3-pointers in seven attempts. The Jazz needed every single one of them to stave off a pesky Minnesota team that led or stayed within striking distance for practically the entire 48 minutes.

"It feels like we've been playing playoff basketball for the last 20 games," Foye said. "My job is to go out there and hit the open jumper. I don't ever want to be in a position of not doing that. I knew they were doubling on Al, and I just wanted to make sure I presented an open target and knocked everything down."

Foye hit a 3-pointer to give the Jazz an 88-85 lead in the fourth quarter. A few minutes later, he hit another one to supply Utah with a 95-90 advantage.

In other words, his two biggest shots came at arguably the two biggest junctures of the game, critical moments where the Jazz absolutely had to have makes from the perimeter.

He scored 16 points, and even when he wasn't getting kick-outs, he served as the all-important floor spacer. Indeed, much of Jefferson's room on the block can be attributed to Minnesota's hesitance to leave Foye roaming alone for open shots.

"I figured if I kept doing my job on the block, I would get my teammates open shots," Jefferson said. "Towards the end of the third quarter they really started to double me, and that's when Randy started making some big shots."