Utah Jazz: Okur maintains hot streak, scores career high

In English, they say a red-hot player who can't miss shots is "on fire." It's "en fuego" in Spanish.

And in Turkish?

Mehmet Okur, of course.

Okur was so hot — pick your favorite language to describe his degree of fieriness — during his career-high 43-point night he even had to blow the smoke off his sizzling, deadly accurate handgun and/or burning fingers on a couple of occasions.

The fun, theatrical flare he did multiple times during the Jazz's 120-113 shootout win by blowing at his fingertips might have been a relief to the Pacers actually.

Every other time his hand raised up near his head, he seemed to be shooting the bull's-eye in the middle of the net.

"I felt like (doing) something like that because I was feeling great," he said with a smile, explaining his playful spontaneity. "That was something I just came up with, and I had a good time."

Okur especially had a good (shooting) time in the first quarter, when he scorched the nets for 18 points. That's becoming a habit, too. He's now averaged 13.4 points in the opening period over the last five games.

He added another eight points by halftime, with teammates prodding him to shoot for 50. Andrei Kirilenko jokingly said he thought Okur might have an "80-point night."

"I felt good," Okur said. "I felt like one of those nights for me I wasn't going to miss."

If the Pacers didn't notice, at least one of their fans wearing Indiana garb at EnergySolutions Arena did.

"Leave Okur on the bench!" the flabbergasted spectator yelled in the third quarter.

Too late.

Before Okur cooled down and (gasp!) missed two shots in a row at the end of the third quarter, he had amassed 41 points on 12-of-14 shooting with nearly 16 minutes remaining in the ballgame. He also had nine rebounds.

"He's amazing. He's been on fire all night long. It starts actually from last game ... He just keep making shots," Kirilenko said. "We're trying to just find him. When a guy's going on a streak like that, you should use him as much as possible."

And they did.

A lot.

"He just, you might say, let it rip," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. "And he did, he had a wonderful game for us."

Okur sounded — and shot — a whole lot like he did Saturday when he hit 8 of 9 shots and finished with 22 points despite sitting out the entire fourth quarter.

"My teammates did a good job," he said. "They really create open shots for me and I felt good ... and my teammates just kept telling me just shoot it when you're open."

The scary thing for opponents right now is that Okur says he's in more of a groove now and more involved in the team's offense than he was when he was named an All-Star in 2007.