After a short delay, tonight at Energy Solutions Arena, it’s finally time for Marvin Bowl I! The Hawks will try to keep the best road show not currently on PBS going against a Utah Jazz team striving to stay above board in the Western Conference standings.

Like Stealers Wheel, both franchises seem stuck in the middle with their core players, and like Huey Lewis, they appear quite happy to be in that situation. Perhaps the second-most clandestine outfit in all of Salt Lake City, the Jazz front office elected to hang onto their entire roster at the trading deadline.

But while Atlanta, who settled for minor maneuvers, is virtually certain to reach the postseason in the East, a loss for Utah could drop them into the West’s 8^th seed, with Kobe Bryant and the Lakers (3.5 games behind) nipping at their heels. Utahans are eager for another home win after the Jazz (21-7 at Energy Solutions) let one slip away against the Celtics on Monday. Atlanta hopes to improve on a 12-9 mark against Western Conference foes. They’re one of five Eastern Conference teams with a +.500 record against the West, and one of five with a winning road record (14-13).

Utah GM Dennis Lindsey’s decision not to entertain trades for impending free agents Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson did Derrick no Favors. The South Atlanta High and Georgia Tech product is establishing a more complete game, with career highs in assists and steals supplementing his Top 20 NBA presence in blocks per game (1.4, 17^th in NBA, 3^rd among non-starters) and rebounding percentage (16.7 per 100 possessions, 20^th in NBA). The Hawks’ Zaza Pachulia, who rested his Achilles’ during the Hawks’ drubbing of Detroit on Monday, leads NBA non-starters in rebounding percentage, while Favors ranks fourth.

Look for a busy night for Favors if Paul Millsap is a no-go. Millsap sprained his ankle on Monday against Boston and hasn’t practiced in two days of shootarounds.

Former Hawk Marvin Williams is having a down(y) year. Outside of blocked shots, his production is down across pretty much every significant category, while his purported defensive acumen hasn’t fit the, um, bill. “Various national voices have started calling Marvin Williams the worst starting SF in the NBA,” noted SB Nation’s SLC Dunk blog earlier this week. “The more we see him this season, the harder it is to disagree.”

But as we know, Marvin does love playing those Celtics, and busted out with 15 points on Monday. Rather than feeling ducky about Marvin’s performance as a possible breakout moment, Jazz fans fully expect Marvin to waddle back into his nest in the corner and lay eggs. He hasn’t scored in double-digits in consecutive games since November 23. Marvin missed out on the January 11 game in Atlanta due to inflammation in his right knee.

After a series of slow starts, Coach Tyrone Corbin shook up his starting lineup, but not by subbing Marvin for Gordon Hayward (career-high 14.1 PPG, but just 42.9 FG%; team-leading 3.8 FTM per game). Instead, he sat 9-year veteran point guard Jamaal Tinsley (8.6 Assists per-36) in favor of 11-year vet Earl Watson (8.3 Assists per-36). It has been pretty much a wash between the two while Mo Williams recovers from thumb surgery. The jury is out on whether Corbin will stick with starting Watson, who could do nothing elementary on either end of the floor against the Celtics, or if he continues his recent experiment with 21-year-old sophomore Alec Burks, who hit a big layup with 20 seconds to go to force overtime against the Celts on Monday and stayed in at the point in the extra frame.

After besting Greg Monroe with a career-high 22 rebounds and 23 points on just 16 shots, the degree of competitive difficulty for Al Horford gets turned up a notch with Jefferson tonight. For a player leading all NBA centers in field goals per game (7.6 a shade ahead of Horford’s 7.5), Jefferson’s turnover rate (6.8 per 100 possessions, 3^rd lowest in NBA) remains uncanny. His career turnover rate of 8.7% ranks 10^th-lowest in NBA history. Despite five turnovers against Detroit on Monday, Horford isn’t far behind Jefferson this season (11.2%, 12^th lowest among NBA centers).

With Jefferson taking the lion’s share of Utah’s shots and shooting a career-low 48.7 FG%, the Hawks will need strong defensive rebounding as a team effort, as we saw in the first three quarters against Detroit, to fend off putbacks from Favors and Millsap.

Jefferson and the Jazz are a hack-a-rific bunch (21.6 personal fouls per game, 3^rd most), especially Favors and the reserves, while the Hawks are quite the opposite (18.2 per game, 2^nd fewest). This bodes well for aggressive guard Devin Harris as well as Jeff Teague, now the Eastern Conference’s second-most accurate free throw shooter (88.2 FT%, second among Eastern qualifiers, to J.J. Redick), especially when driving off screens. Teague has hit 21 free throws in a row and is shooting 91.1% on 4.5 free throw attempts per game in February.

Atlanta’s opponents have the NBA’s second-highest shooting percentage from beyond the arc (38.3 3FG%), so please keep an eye on Randy Foye out at the perimeter. He’s shooting career-highs of 2.2 three-pointers per game and 41.5 3FG%. His hot hand has cooled off, though, in the past eight games (30.2 3FG%). Foye will try to get it going again from long-range like he did against the Hawks on January 11 (6-for-7 on threes, team-high 25 points).

His teammates shot just 2-for-13 on threes in that game, so they’ll be looking for another wing to help Foye out tonight. If it’s not a Duck wing, it will probably be Burks, who has scored in double figures in four of his last six games (13.2 PPG; 49.4 FG%).

The Jazz had the Hawks’ goose cooked on January 11, going up by 15 in the final quarter, when former Jazzman Harris (24 points on 7-for-8 shooting), in his first start after missing a couple weeks with a sore foot led a frenetic charge that kept the Hawks from losing five in a row for the first time since the end of Coach Larry Drew’s 2010-11 season.

Harris and another former Jazz player and 2013 free agent, Kyle Korver, will be more than happy to showcase their offensive skills for the SLC crowd. It was with Utah that Korver, the league leader in three-point shooting percentage, shattered the NBA record for that category (53.6 3FG%). And don’t overlook DeShawn Stevenson, who had about 40 fewer tattoos when he averaged a career-high 11.4 PPG for the Jazz as a 22-year-old in 2004.

The offensive options should be like a candy shop for Josh Smith, who led the Hawks with six assists (along with 15 points and 10 rebounds) against the Jazz on January 11 and rang up at least four dimes in each of his last eight games.

Go Hawks!

~lw3