Nobody, not even the man himself, knows for sure where Greg Ostertag will be playing basketball next season, and that makes everything you're about to read speculation, as far as you know, but, chances are, it won't be with the Jazz.

With 'Tag, what seems to be a sure thing sometimes isn't. And there's no good explanation for what went haywire.  He's never been able to clearly justify himself in that regard, in any regard.

If you had five bucks for every time over the past nine seasons you thought Ostertag had turned the corner as a player, and, then, he suddenly slammed it into reverse, headed full speed into aggressive regression, you might have been able to pay him his $8.65 million salary this year, and had plenty to spare.

Jerry Sloan's plan is to return for a 17th season as head coach of the Jazz. Should his intentions change, however, Jazz owner Larry H. Miller has a successor in mind.

He's said it before, and nothing ? he said Thursday, as Jazz players cleaned out their lockers after a 42-40 season ? has given him cause to think otherwise.

"It's Phil," Miller said. "We've told Phil that."

'Phil' is Phil Johnson, ex-NBA Coach of the Year and Sloan's longtime right-hand man.

"Phil deserves it," Miller said. "I think if something happened like (Sloan not returning), Phil would want to take a shot at it for a while. He's certainly earned it."

Sloan's wife, Bobbye, is battling pancreatic cancer, a reality that potentially could prompt the Jazz coach to change his mind about returning. If that were to happen, though, no new-coach search would even need to be conducted, Miller suggested.

"We would do that unhesitatingly," he said. "I mean, you guys wouldn't even need to show up for the press conference. You could just say Larry Miller said to announce that Phil Johnson would be the new head coach.

"He's been so doggone-loyal," Miller added. "He's been here (16) years, and he's filled in for Jerry. . . . That's a real positive for us, because that way we don't have to make contingency plans."

On a glittering, star-studded night that included the likes of Michael Jordan, the Denver Nuggets earned its first playoff berth in nearly a decade, defeating the Sacramento Kings 97-89 before a deafening sellout crowd.

The Nuggets will make their first postseason appearance since the 1994-95 season on Saturday or Sunday. The opponent, Minnesota or San Antonio, won't be determined until Wednesday night, but the future wasn't the immediate concern for a franchise less than a year removed from having the worst record in the league.

"I don't even care (about the opponent); I just want to enjoy tonight," general manager Kiki Vandeweghe said. "I just know that when the playoffs start, you have to come to play, but that's what this team has done all season."

The victory completed a dramatic turnaround for Denver.

Winners of just 17 games a season ago, the Nuggets are now 43-38 with a meaningless regular-season finale to play Wednesday in San Antonio. The 26-game improvement is the greatest in NBA history for a team that won fewer than 20 games the previous season.

Minnesota's defeat of Utah along with the Nuggets victory meant that both the Jazz and the Blazers had their long, playoff streaks broken at 20 and 21 respectively.  Denver qualified for the postseason for the first time since 1995.

During the 1966-67 NBA season, Jerry Sloan played for an expansion Chicago Bulls team that was expected to put up little fight against its opponents. Instead, the Bulls made headlines by finishing 33-48, the best record for an NBA expansion team, and qualifying for the playoffs.

Now in his 16th season as coach of the Utah Jazz, Sloan recalled that story to motivate his rebuilt team as this season began. The Jazz wasn't expected to play much better than an expansion team, according to many preseason predictions. Drawing inspiration from Sloan's former Bulls squad, this young and inexperienced Jazz team (42-38) is fighting for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference with the Nuggets (42-38). Two games remain for both teams.

"This team is no different than an expansion team I played on that made the playoffs," said Sloan, whose team visits Minnesota tonight. "You run into teams that take you lightly. That's an advantage sometimes, and you still have to win those games. They have been able to win a couple games that way.

"It just gives guys a chance to believe that they belong."

"Nobody expected us to win 10 games," said forward Andre Kirilenko, who is averaging team highs of 16.5 points and 8.1 rebounds. "We proved to everybody that we can play some basketball, and we proved to ourselves that we can play good quality basketball."

Said Sloan, a coach of the year candidate: "We weren't supposed to be fighting for anything except a lottery pick. Young players have to learn how to play. The more they get to play in games that are supposedly meaningful, they either succeed or get a good lesson."

Through 80 games, the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz have battled to a draw, leaving them tied for the eighth and last playoff spot in the Western Conference with 42-38 records. Their penultimate chance at creating separation takes place tonight, when Denver hosts the Sacramento Kings and Utah plays the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis.

The ace up Denver's sleeve is its tiebreaker with Utah, which comes from a 3-1 series record against the Jazz.

If both teams win out and Houston, which has clinched a playoff berth, loses twice to create a three-way tie, the Nuggets edge the Jazz on the NBA's three-way tiebreaker. Denver is 5-3 combined against the Rockets and Jazz, the Rockets are 4-4 against the Nuggets and Jazz and the Jazz is 3-5 against the Rockets and Nuggets.

"It's tough, man," Utah point guard Carlos Arroyo said of his team's disadvantage. "We knew from the beginning of the season that if we played hard every night, we would have an opportunity to be in this position. We've done that and we have the opportunity. But it's tough that we don't have the tiebreaker."

An informal poll of 24 reporters who cover the league regularly - 13 from the Western Conference and 11 from the East - showed that Utah's Jerry Sloan had an edge over Hubie Brown of Memphis for the coaching honor.

Sloan received 14 first-place votes, Brown got eight, one was split, and there was one abstention. The point totals, on a 3-2-1 basis, showed Sloan with a 60 to 50 lead over Brown.

Brown on Sloan: "The guy's done a miraculous job. He's made the playoffs what, 21 straight years? If he makes the playoffs with this team, that will be one of the major accomplishments of his career. It would be great if he won it. He's a man's man and he's a professional. He coaches with his heart."

Sloan on Brown: "He's done a great job with that team. He's one of the best coaches in basketball, and he's a great teacher. He does things the right way, and this year all their players know exactly what their roles are on that team. I'm not surprised at all that they've been so successful."

The poll showed that there were two runaway races - for most valuable player (Kevin Garnett) and rookie of the year (Lebron James).

Mikki Moore doesn't get to dunk on many 7-foot-6 people, like he did Thursday with a resounding slam over Shawn Bradley. But it's not something entirely new to him, either. Bradley was the victim last time, too.

And so was the Maverick center's response.

"Shawn and I have a little bit of a history, you could say, of bumping into each other," Moore said.

Bradley retaliated for Moore's dunk Thursday with an elbow to the stomach as he ran past, an action that referee Gary Zielinski spotted. He quickly whistled a technical on Bradley.

Same thing happened earlier in his career, Moore said.

"I caught him with a good [dunk] when I was in Detroit," Moore said, "and he reacted the same way. He threw an elbow after I dunked."

In fact, Moore said, "on the next play, [Jerry] Stackhouse went down and tried to dunk on him, and Bradley head butted him. That's how he plays."