Mehmet Okur gets in zone for career high 43
Jazz sharpshooter Kyle Korver has experienced nights when his jump shots seem to drop automatically … when the ball softly settles into the bottom of the basket nearly every time it’s launched.
It happened Monday at EnergySolutions Arena, when Memo Okur made 13 of 19 field-goal attempts and finished with a career-high 43 points during the Jazz’s 120-113 victory over Indiana.
Okur was 5-for-6 from the field in the first quarter, 8-for-9 in the first half and 12-for-16 through three quarters. He made three of his four shots from the three-point line.
“When you get rolling, you just look for that space,” said Korver. “You don’t have to really look at the hoop. So you don’t have to focus on that part.
“You just focus on, ‘Can I get this shot off?’ … You know that if you just get that shot off it’s going to go in. And Memo had that tonight. He was on fire.”
The Jazz got going early, thanks to Okur.
They converted 18 of 29 possessions into points in the first quarter. Okur scored nine points in an 86-second span and finished the quarter with 18 — half of his team’s total.
“He’s amazing,” said teammate Andrei Kirilenko. “He was on fire from the start — actually, from the last game. He just kept making shots and we try our best to find him because, when a guy goes on a streak like that, you should use him as much as possible.”
Rookie center Kosta Koufos took some notes on Okur’s performance.
“He’s a great player,” Koufis said, “and he’s a great role model for myself. You have to give him credit. He played hard the whole game and his scoring, that was big-time.”Koufos noticed that Okur didn’t force anything: “Memo has the whole package and he showed that tonight. He’s an in-and-out player and — at any moment — he can catch fire.”
Okur became the third player this season to score at least 40 points against Indiana, joining Phoenix’ Amare Stoudemire (49) and Sacramento’s Kevin Martin (45).
“… Hats off to him,” said Pacers coach Jim O’Brien.
Only four players in Jazz history have scored at least 50 points in a game. When Okur entered the fourth quarter with 41, it looked like he might join Karl Malone, Adrian Dantley, Pete Maravich and Truck Robinson.
Malone was the last Jazz player to score at least 50. He had 56 against Golden State on April 7, 1998.
The Pacers didn’t allow it, however. They focused on Okur down the stretch, which is one reason Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko each scored 11 points in the fourth quarter.
Okur had two.
“They didn’t want to leave me,” he said. “[But] we had a couple of easy baskets because they didn’t want to leave me. We tried to run pick-and-roll — me and Deron. And he hit a couple of layups and Andrei hit a couple of layups, so it was good for us.”
