Okur is closing in on Jazz '3' record

MIAMI — With his next two successful shots from behind the long-distance line, perhaps coming when Utah visits Miami tonight, Mehmet Okur will be the Jazz's single-season record holder for 3-point makes.

Utah's starting center didn't always fire away from the outside, though.

"When I was (a young teenager, playing in Turkey) they didn't have any big guys," Okur said, "so they put me on the block and let me do my thing (there)."

By the time he was about 17 or 18, though, Okur had developed a comfortable outside stroke like so many European big men.

How did he do it?

"I shot every day, stayed in the gym every day, shooting, shooting, shooting, over and over and over," Okur said. "If I didn't stay in the gym, maybe I'm just an inside player right now."

Instead, the big Turk and 2007 All-Star has an inside-outside game so consistent he has a green light from coach Jerry Sloan to shoot at will.

And often he does.

"I know he's gonna have nights when he can't miss," point guard Deron Williams said after Okur scored a game-high 29 points in Utah's win Saturday over New Orleans/Oklahoma City, one in which he hit 5-of-7 from 3-point range to surpass Bryon Russell's single-season trey attempts record (268 in 1999-2000) and move within two makes of passing Russell's 1996-97 record of 108 made 3-pointers.

"When he's on he's on, and he'll tell you, too," Williams added. He'll tell you: 'I'm on. Find me."'

So Williams does, with the blessing of a coach not always known for approving of such behavior.

"People always said I didn't want us to shoot the 3-point shot," Sloan said. "I don't mind shooting 3-point shots — but you've got to make them.

"Everybody knows (Okur) can make them," the Jazz coach added, "and it spreads the floor out tremendously whenever (opponents) know he's out there — because they have to have somebody after him."

THINKING AHEAD: With 20 games to go before the regular season ends, Sloan already is thinking playoffs.

Rather than contemplating how he'll shorten his bench as most teams do for postseason play, however, the Jazz coach is instead thinking about how he can preserve minutes for all of his top reserves.