As he readies for return, Bogdanovic says Jazz have the pieces to put things back together

SALT LAKE CITY — The healing might begin Thursday for the Utah Jazz.

After lengthy absences, Bojan Bogdanovic and Danuel House Jr. will both return to Utah's lineup Thursday against the Los Angeles Lakers (8 p.m. MDT, TNT).

Bogdanovic has missed 10 of the last 11 games with a left calf strain. House has missed eight games with a left knee bone bruise.

In the 10 games Bogdanovic missed, the Jazz went 3-10, which included the current five-game losing streak. So maybe — just maybe — that's all Utah needs to right a ship that's been spiraling down.

"We have enough veteran players on the team to put the group back together no matter how bad we are playing in certain moments," Bogdanovic said.

The Jazz are 42-22 in games that Bogdanovic plays and 27-11 when they have their preferred starting lineup of Bogdanovic, Mike Conley, Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell and Royce O'Neale. Barring any late scratches, Utah will have that lineup against the Lakers.

"We showed this year that we need every single guy, so coming into the postseason I think that for us it's most important to have a healthy team and everyone available to play," Bogdanovic said. "I know that we are good enough to play against anybody. ... We gotta stick together, we gotta get a couple Ws to get that confidence back heading into the playoffs."

If the Jazz can manage that, House said the recent struggles may even bode well for Utah come the postseason. He considers the recent failures an "early test" of how the team needs to execute down the stretch when the playoffs roll around. To him, it's better to learn from those now than in the middle of a series.

"We've just got to prepare ourselves in our minds," House said. "... So we got a taste early. Now we know how to handle ourselves and how to conduct things. We want to go back to the drawing board as a unit and make sure that we are popping together."

And while it might be hard to believe considering Utah's recent struggles, Bogdanovic still thinks the Jazz are better prepared for a postseason run than they were last season when they entered the postseason as the No. 1 seed. With everyone healthy, he sees a more versatile team that can better adjust to different matchups.

"I think that we need every single guy to be to be healthy in order to go deep in the postseason, but I think that no matter how it looks right now, I think that we are more ready than then than we were last year," he said.

Trent Forrest (concussion protocols) and Hassan Whiteside (right foot sprain) remain out.

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