Okur in slump as Jazz fight for playoffs

After watching Mehmet Okur put up six points and pull down six boards while playing 33 minutes in Wednesday's loss to Charlotte, two games after he scored seven in a loss to New Orleans/Oklahoma City, coach Jerry Sloan suggested the Jazz's season scoring- and rebounding-leader is in a slump.

"He seems to really be struggling here of late, and it's up to him to fight through it and see where he is," Sloan said. "Everybody goes through a stage in an 82-game season where they run into tough times.

"All you're looking for to see out of that is how do you fight out of it? Do you feel sorry for yourself, think the world is mistreating you? Well, maybe it is. But you've got to fight out of it."

Part of Okur's problem, Sloan said, may be a previously undisclosed bruised knee: "I don't know if that's slowing him down, or what."

Some suggest the hiccup in Okur's play has coincided with fellow power forward Carlos Boozer's return to the Jazz lineup.

Sloan concedes his substitution pattern has been different and somewhat less predictable recently, but the stats don't necessarily jibe with the assertion that Boozer's presence has negatively impacted Okur.

In the eight games since Boozer has been back, in fact, Okur has averaged 16.4 points and 9.8 rebounds. During the 49 games in which Boozer was out with a strained hamstring, Okur did score more — averaging 17.9 points. But he also averaged fewer boards (9.3) during that span.

In any event, Okur believes Wednesday's performance was an aberration.

"It's behind me now," he said Thursday.

Okur, for that matter, doesn't seem to feel he's slumping. Consider: Between his seven-point and six-point games, he also had two 26-point games. But that way of thinking, Sloan hinted, may be another part of the problem.

"That's always the case," the Jazz coach said. "When things are going bad, you have a tendency to question other things rather than question yourself."

KIRILENKO DOUBTFUL: The Jazz are calling forward Andrei Kirilenko "doubtful" for tonight's Delta Center game against the Los Angeles Clippers.

Kirilenko didn't play in the second half of Monday's overtime win at Golden State and sat out Utah's loss to Charlotte due to muscle spasms in his lower back, a problem that also kept him out of three games in late December.

How much was he missed Wednesday?