Okur's prayer is answered

Last season, if Memo Okur had been off balance beyond the 3-point arc — 28 feet away from the basket, according to the official play-by-play — with the shot clock running out and a minute and a half left in a close game, he probably would have lost the ball.

"If you recall a lot of times coming down the stretch last year," said Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, " he turned the ball over a great deal of the time. He got in a tough situation, his energy wasn't there."

Okur and Sloan both called it luck that Okur banked in that long, twisting, unplanned, buzzer-beating fadeaway three that pretty much cemented Utah's opening-night win at the Delta Center over the Dallas Mavericks — giving the Jazz an 87-80 lead in what would become a 93-82 win.

But it wasn't luck that he was able to launch it.

It also wasn't luck that Okur, obtained a year ago as a free agent from Detroit after winning a championship ring there without playing a lot, scored 15 of his game-high 27 points in the fourth quarter, making 5-for-6 from the field and all three free throws while adding three rebounds and a blocked shot.

"The most important thing is you give yourself luck when you work hard and play hard," Sloan said.

Okur worked hard all summer to get into the kind of shape Sloan wanted, he had a good training camp — and the result was that he was in Wednesday's game for 37 minutes.

"He couldn't have played 25 minutes last year and been effective," Sloan said.

"I know what I did wrong last year," Okur said. "He always tell me get in shape. He's such a good teacher. He was right about me," said the 6-foot-11 forward/center from Turkey who came to Utah overweight a year ago after getting married in Summer 2004 but spent the 2005 summer following Sloan's advice.

"And he's made a difference," Sloan said, "because he can really shoot the ball.

"I don't care how good a shooter you are, if you're not in shape, you're going to get tired and you can't shoot it as well."

Okur credited rookie point guard Deron Williams for helping set him up in the critical minutes. Williams got the assist on a 22-footer that Okur made with 5:41 left, a shot in which he was fouled and made a three-point play that put Utah ahead 81-77. And Williams had the assist on a 21-footer that Okur made at 8:06 to tie the game at 73.

"Deron create for me," he said.

Okur also noted the rest of the team did the things Sloan wanted. "Everybody on our team plays hard. We play as a team, and I think we should play this way all year," he said.

"Myself, I feel good," Okur added.

Of the off-balance three, he said he knew the shot clock was down to two seconds. "I just threw the ball up.

"No, I didn't call it," Okur said in answer to a facetious question. "Should I call it? Next time, I will."

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