Okur continues his torrid pace

Matt Harpring had some friendly advice for his Utah Jazz teammate Mehmet Okur following Monday night's 120-95 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats.

"Memo needs to pass the ball more," Harpring said.

Harpring was joking, of course. Okur was on fire against the Bobcats. If anything, he should have shot even more.

Okur made all but two of his 15 shots from the field and finished with a game-high 32 points in leading the Jazz at EnergySolutions Arena.

"It looked like everything (Okur) put up there was going in the basket," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan.

It was a far cry from Okur's 3-for-19 outing in his previous home game last week against the Lakers. But, he says, it was just one of those games.

"I felt good out there," said Okur. "My teammates, they did a great job and they created open shots for me. They believed in me tonight, and I have a confidence in my shot."

Okur's "starting to realize, finally, that he is an All-Star," said Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko. "He's really a guy who is carrying the team right now ... Memo is a scoring machine — especially at the crucial moments. He's unbelievable."

Okur scored a team-high 13 points in the first half as the Jazz opened up a 10-point lead. But he really poured it on in the third quarter — scoring 13 points on 6-for-6 shooting.

"That guy got hot," said Jazz forward Carlos Boozer, referring to his fellow All-Star teammate Okur. "He's one of those dudes that when he gets hot — it doesn't matter where he is on the court — it's going to be nothing but bottoms (of the net). That third quarter was evidence of that."

Okur, since his struggles against the Lakers in his first game back after sitting out two games with a sore back, has been shooting the ball well, helping the Jazz win three straight games on the road prior to Monday's home victory. He scored 28 points on 10-for-17 shooting on Sunday night in Oklahoma City against the Hornets.

"Every game is very important for us because we want to be a great team in the league," said Okur. "We work hard, night in and night out, and we play hard and every game is like a playoff game for us."

And as long as Okur is shooting like he did Monday night, the Jazz may spend a considerable amount of time in the actual playoffs this spring.

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E-mail: lojo@desnews.com