Joe Ingles may have a green light to shoot, but he's still holding up a red flag on taking part in the three-point contest at the NBA's All-Star weekend in February.

While he isn't backtracking on his comments last week that he wasn't interested in participating, the Australian, who currently leads the league in three-point percentage, left the door ajar to competing.

However, it could take another Aussie - fellow Olympian Patty Mills the obvious example - being invited for him to reconsider.

"You might be able to talk me into it [then]," joked Ingles at the Jazz's shootaround on Monday morning.

"It's one of those things, I mean, you never know who they're going to pick anyway so I'm not going to worry about it. If they do, then we'll have the talks then, but right now it's not even a focus."

With Ingles' wife Renae giving birth to twins Jacob and Milla in July, and putting her own elite netball career on hold to look after the children, he said he would prefer to use that weekend to take his family on a getaway.

"Family is number one now with the wife and the kids, and everything else is secondary," Ingles said. "It's been a big year for her giving up the netball for the time being and having the kids. The first five months has been pretty full-on. I just want to take her away and relax as a family.

"It's got nothing to do with trying to boycott [the event] or anything like that."

Ingles has earned the right to rest his body if he so chooses, as he's been putting up career-high numbers in multiple categories this season, becoming a key component of coach Quinn Snyder's lineup.

A slew of injuries to several Jazz players this season has forced Snyder into playing Ingles more in crunch-time situations, even entrusting him to become the team's defensive stopper in late-game situations.

Ingles has rewarded his coach's faith. In two games last week, Ingles was able to stymie both Lou Williams of the L.A. Lakers, and Phoenix Suns sharpshooter Devin Booker, to help the Jazz come away with two clutch wins.

"Coach has challenged me defensively, just to be more consistent," he said. "A lot of players go out there thinking about scoring or getting a shot, or making a shot. I've tried to go out there and focus on [defense].

"I'm trying to go out there and get stops and kind of dictate on the defensive end a little bit."

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Ingles has always been known as a cerebral player on the court, often turning down a good shot to find a great shot, but his efficiency in '16-17 is at a career-high - 60 percent of all Ingles' field-goal attempts (97 threes) have come from behind the three-point line, making them at a clip of 49.5 percent.

"I'm not going to take bad shots, or force it up there just to get my own numbers up," he insisted.

"I probably would have taken the same amount of shots if I wasn't shooting it as well percentage wise, really. I'm only going to try to take good shots when I can, and there's been games where you make a few shots and you want to test the waters a little and have another shot, but I'll just try take good shots.

"I know with the work that I've done that if I get a good look, it's gonna go down."

His coach says he trusts Ingles to make the right decisions and execute.

"He's had the green light [to shoot] for a while now," Snyder said. "He's been checking both ways sometimes [and] treating it like a yellow light [in the past].

"I think his confidence has improved, and I don't think there's any part of him wondering whether it's a good shot. I trust him to take good shots - if that means he takes a bad one now-and-then, that means he's being aggressive. That's okay."

Despite not being able to field a healthy squad for the majority of the season, the Jazz have maintained pace with the leaders out West. Leading into Monday's game with Brooklyn, Utah are tied for fourth with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Ingles credits the team's consistency in the face of adversity to its 'next man up' mantra, and he also put the league on notice once Utah get fully healthy.

"We've had a ton of injuries. The good thing with that is, a lot of guys have played that probably otherwise wouldn't have played," he said. "I might not have played as much if it wasn't for those other guys [getting injured].

"Getting later into the year when you know you've done that work early, if we're 100 percent healthy and we get thrown in, we know we can help the team.

"We'll slowly get guys back and get healthy. Once we get healthy, we're a scary team."