Utah Jazz: Kyrylo Fesenko logs big minutes in easy win for Jazz

SALT LAKE CITY — Looks like the Utah Jazz might have discovered their secret weapon.

They might want to get him some extra oxygen quickly, too.

With Mehmet Okur out again with a stomach ailment, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan turned to sparingly used backup big man Kyrylo Fesenko to start at center against the New Orleans Hornets.

Turned out to be the call of the night. The Jazz improved to 5-0 on the season with Fesenko on the court for the opening tipoff.

Surprisingly, Sloan barely took Fes off the court after the game started.

Not only did Fesenko log a career-high 431/2 minutes, but he also totaled season-highs with 11 points and eight rebounds to help the Jazz cruise to a 106-86 blowout win.

The longest playing stint Fesenko had this season was 25 minutes in the come-from-25-down win at Portland a month ago.

"He'll probably pass out in a couple of minutes," Jazz forward Carlos Boozer joked, "but he'll be all right tomorrow."

Au contraire. Fesenko was so excited he joked that he could play another 48 minutes Saturday night.

"I guess I'm tired," the Ukrainian third-year player said, "but it feels so great that I'm not even notice it."

Though his season-high marks were nice and all, Fesenko's most impressive stat might have been that he only had four personal fouls. Consider this: He came in averaging 1.7 fouls and eight minutes, and spent the day thinking about fouling out quickly in Friday's loss at Phoenix.

"I did a lot of homework in my mind since yesterday when I got six fouls in nine minutes," Fesenko said. "So I guess I did it right and I got the result."

Sloan even got on Fesenko for taking himself out of the game mentally — not to mention for throwing a towel behind the bench — in his frustrating Friday outing.

With that in mind, Fesenko was determined to "just not to worry about the little things" — like the referees or getting pushed in the back while also focusing on keeping his cool.

"He did a great job today, getting down low and bangin'," Jazz forward Paul Millsap said. "Fes, he's a character, but he comes out to play. When his name is called, he comes out and does the best he can, and it showed today."

Sloan was equally impressed.

"You never know when you might get thrown to the wolves a little bit," the 22nd year coach said of the 23-year-old. "I thought he responded very well, and had some good moments out there."

Fesenko started the game particularly strong, driving hard to the basket for a couple of early layups. Later on, he scored on an inside spin move, and ended up shooting 5-for-10 from the field. He also had three blocked shots.

On the downside, Fesenko had five turnovers and two of his shots were sent the other way by Emeka Okafor.