SALT LAKE CITY — The Jazz held practice Thursday on the second day of their two days off between playing Portland Tuesday and Minnesota Friday. Head coach Quin Snyder, wings Joe Ingles and Joe Johnson, and center Rudy Gobert spoke to the media

Injury update

There were many changes in the injury report for the Jazz Thursday, most of which indicate progress from Tuesday's injury situation.

Derrick Favors, Raul Neto, and Rodney Hood have all been upgraded to being questionable for Friday's game, after all being out on Tuesday. Favors has missed the last 14 games with a knee contusion, Neto has been out the last four games with a groin strain, and Hood missed just Tuesday's game with lingering knee soreness.

George Hill has also been out for four games, but his status has been upgraded to just doubtful, not questionable.

Jeff Withey missed Thursday's practice due to an illness, and he is also questionable for the game. Ideally, the Jazz would have at least one of Withey or Favors available to play backup minutes behind Rudy Gobert.

Dante Exum, after missing the entire fourth quarter on Tuesday due to a hip contusion, was not on the injury report. When asked for clarification, Jazz PR confirmed that meant that he is available for Friday's game, barring a new injury in shootaround or something like that.

Favors, Neto, Hill, Alec Burks, Trey Lyles, and Joel Bolomboy played a round of 3-on-3 after practice. Everyone looked like they were moving well, though it obviously wasn't at full speed.

Quin on the referees

Early Thursday morning, Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey went on The Vertical podcast with Adrian Wojnarowski to talk about the systemic issues that he feels explain why the Jazz have been near the bottom of the league's call margin for the last three seasons. I wrote a report on those issues, and Lindsey's interview, which you can find here.

Practice, and the associated media availability, meant that we had the opportunity to ask Quin Snyder what his point of view on the situation was.

"I know how hard the officials work to get things right. I think this issue that Dennis is talking about is more global. I think it's counterproductive for me to think about it on a global scale, but I think about it game-to-game. And to think about it in how I prepare our players," Snyder said.

"The relevant part for me is Dennis' support. That's the part that stands out for me and for our players. Our organization feels that there's an issue, and it's appropriate at time to talk about these issues."

The Jazz have accumulated the fewest technicals of any team in the league. Is that by design?

"It's not something I try to hold back," Snyder said. "I think it's important for us to try to learn and adjust to the officiating. Our guys are talking to the officials even more, which I like. It's not anything more than pragmatism and respect."

And for his players, "It's never been something that we've tried to avoid. My only advice for them is to wait for a dead ball, so we're not playing 5-on-4," Snyder said. "And get to the heart of the matter. I think the key thing is how is your communication received, and is it productive. There's times where it is, I'm sure."

Matchup against Minnesota

The Jazz's last home loss was against the Minnesota Timberwolves on March 1, when they were blown out 107-80. That game, the home team came out very sluggishly, and never found their rhythm on either side of the ball. It was a Bad Loss.

That being said, in retrospect, it's clear that Minnesota was in a different place then, too. For a stretch, they had the league's best defensive rating since the All-Star break, but that's flipped recently. They haven't held a team under 110 points per 100 possessions in 11 games.

Why? Well, teams found some success at running Karl-Anthony Towns and Gorgui Dieng on pick and rolls recently, and they've started to attack that weakness. It's also probably fair to say that the Wolves' official elimination from postseason contention didn't help, either.

A billboard for Joe

Wednesday, we featured the fan-created campaign to create a billboard to convince Gordon Hayward to stay in Utah this summer, when he has the contractual opportunity to opt out and leave to another team via free agency.

When that article was published, the campaign had raised about $1500 of the $5000 required for the billboard. Just over 24 hours later, they've raised over $4100.

But Hayward's teammate Joe Ingles has a problem with the plan.

"I'm waiting for my own billboard. I'll donate to my own billboard's GoFundMe," Ingles said. "I'll put a couple of bucks into it!"

Ingles is a free agent this summer too, after all. A billboard for Jingles (I liked the "Don't Go, Joe" idea) isn't the craziest plan, either.

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